


More Than Survive

by CrystalMoon884



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz, Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alana is a cyborg, Connor is a disapproving Squip who hates his job and life, Dear Evan Hasen/Be More Chill Crossover, Evan is cute lost puppy, Evan with first person POV, F/M, Gen, Jared isn't willing to admit he cares for Evan, Just the idea of Squips has been transferred, Only featuring Dear Evan Hansen characters, Set in the future, Zoe still isn't forgiving, blood/gore warning, suicide warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2018-11-13 12:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 159,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11185476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystalMoon884/pseuds/CrystalMoon884
Summary: Evan Hansen is a social outcast. Not because of his anxiety or his fear of people. Not because he's a bad student or a teacher's pet, which he isn't either. No, it's because he, unlike most of the humans on Earth, cannot have a Squip implanted in his head. However, when a Squip - who is also Connor Murphy, older brother of Evan's longtime crush, Zoe Murphy - suddenly appears in Evan's head without any warning while Evan is trying to sleep, things become complicated in Evan's life. For the first time, he's accepted and seen. For the first time, he has real friends. However, not all that glitters is gold, and as soon as people start asking questions as to why a living boy has somehow become a Squip, Evan and his newfound friends must find out why Connor is the way he is.As Evan, Jared, Zoe and Alana slowly figure what - and who - Connor really is, they discover the real reason that almost every human being on planet Earth has a Squip in their head.





	1. I Want to More Than Survive

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that this whole 'Connor being Evan's Squip in a BMC/DEH crossover fic' isn't overplayed. But, even if it is, I'm going to do it one more time.  
> I promise this one will be the first and only of it's kind story-wise, though.  
> (unless someone read my mind and stole my ideas. In which case, I'm calling Mulder because that should be an X File)  
> Enjoy!

“Mr Hansen, are you listening?”

 

    The laughter from the class coming after my teacher’s comment knocked me back into reality. I quickly looked up to the front of the classroom, where my math teacher, Mr David, was teaching something about algebra. He now stood, commandingly, in the front with his arms crossed over his chest.

 

    I’d been looking out the window, at the large oak tree that was planted in front of the school. It was the one good part of my high school, the one piece of beauty in a sea of despair, anger, heartbreak and teenage angst.

 

    “Yes.” I responded in a half-hearted voice. I plastered on a nervous smile, feeling my heart beat faster because I knew that everyone was looking at me. Watching me. Judging me quietly in their minds. My hand flew to my cast right away, trying in vain to cover it up.

 

    “Then please repeat to me what I just said.” Mr David replied, tapping his foot in rhythm with my heightened breathing as he glared at me. The other students giggled in a way that showed that they were trying not to laugh, and my face heated up.

 

    Mr David’s Squip, a small semi-opaque man in a suit who looked much like Mr David, was glaring at me, too. The Squip was about a foot tall, hovering about an inch over Mr David's shoulder.

 

     Mr David didn’t have an outright problem with me, but his Squip did. I knew that if my Squip worked that my Squip and his Squip would have a very long, very rude argument with each other.

 

    And, because I was sans Squip, I had to think my own way out of dumb situations I got myself into. Like the one I was currently in.

 

    “Um, the chaos theory?” I attempted, not knowing where my words had come from. I surprised everyone in the class with my answer, including myself. Mr David raised an eyebrow as my palms began to get sweaty.

 

    In my mind’s eye, I could see him throwing me out of his classroom and calling the principal. The principal would then kick me out of high school, and Mom would be so ashamed. Or maybe Mr David would make me the laughingstock of the school for both not having a Squip and for caring more about trees than math. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

 

    “I’ve never, in all my years as a teacher, taught the chaos theory, Mr Hansen.” Mr David’s voice was stale, and still surprised. A small smile slowly crept across his face as he thought of the perfect punishment for me not listening in class. “Can you tell me what the chaos theory is, Mr Hansen?”

 

    My mind blanked, just like every other social interaction I usually had on a daily basis. Only this time it was between a teacher and I, in front of the whole class. I tried not to focus on the people in class, trying to not acknowledge that I’d be the laughing stock of next hour’s lunch if I got this wrong.

 

    “Chaos theory is the idea that life is chaotic?” I tried. I bit my lip so hard I feared I’d break open the skin and have blood flood my mouth and kill me, if Mr David’s Squip didn’t kill me first.

 

    “That is _almost_ right, Mr Hansen.” Mr David nodded, suppressing his own smile and laughs. He quickly shook the happy mood he was in and stared me down, his thoughts shifting towards now punishing me. “You are going to write me an essay that will be on my desk on Monday morning about chaos theory. Got it?”

 

    “Yes, Mr David. You’ll have an essay by Monday.” I choked out, playing with the fingers on my left hand in an effort to distract myself from the laughing and shouting voices that I was drowning in. The sound made me wish that lunch would just come already, so I could hide in the computer lab away from everyone else already.

 

    Although Mr David seemed to find what had just happened somewhat funny, his Squip was shaking his head slowly and, if he had laser vision, I would have a very large hole going through my skull by now. His Squip flashed a final angry red, and turned back to the board, admiring the equation that Mr David had written in black Expo marker.

 

     Laughter filled the room, and I heard the sound of many teenagers saying that they would be posting videos of what had transpired on different social media sites. Yet another reminder of why I didn’t use the Internet for anything but schoolwork. Social media was still a social thing, and social means people.

 

    Squips from students, which were supposed to be turned off in class, flickered into existence for the last minute before class ended. Each of the Squips were different, and they each emitted a different color of light through their semi-opaque bodies. Squips and students talked and joked and laughed, reminding me once again how different my world was from theirs. The bodies of the Squips, small and slightly aglow, twinkled in the dull light of the classroom.

 

    Even though I technically had a Squip in my head, it couldn’t be activated for whatever reason. Doctors and scientists said that Squips didn’t work in less than one percent of the population on planet Earth. The implants that allowed me to see other people’s Squips still worked, though. I had been debating since the start of middle school if seeing other people's Squips was a blessing or a curse.

 

    “Well, I guess that’s all I have to say today, class.” Mr David addressed the other students in the classroom, his voice raising in volume with each word over the loud white noise of the students he was speaking to. “Remember to do problems 60 through 75 for homework, and have a wonderful weekend!”

 

    The bell rang, and the other students in my class rushed out of the door, happy to get to lunch. It was like watching a dam burst, everyone trying to leave at the same time. I tried to steady my breathing and think happy thoughts as I threw my math textbook into my backpack.

 

    I rushed out of the classroom, while the nerds still lingered to talk to Mr David about math, their excited voices a far cry from the mean, minced sounds of the hallway that was laid out before me. A sea of people and Squips made me almost dizzy as they moved and ran to their lunch hour. I could almost sense the headache that some of my fellow classmates must have from running their Squips all day, I was told they could be incapacitating.

 

    My math class was, thankfully, on the same side of the school as the computer lab. I’d been using the large, usually unoccupied room as my refuge from my high school’s lunch room since Sophomore year when I realized that students didn’t get yelled at for lingering during lunch.

 

    I let myself relax a bit as I walked over to my favorite computer. It was an older version of a Mac, with a faded Apple logo with the number 11 etched onto the logo in silver Sharpie. Each of the computers had a similar logo with a number, going from 1 to 40. I didn’t know why the school had such a large computer lab, hardly anyone used it. Squips made computers almost completely obsolete, yet the school still had 40 of the things lying around.

 

    Logging in was simple, every student at my high school had a simple and easy to remember username and password that the school created for them when they were freshmen. The first three letters of the first name and the first five of the last name were what made up the username, and the password was four randomly generated numbers.

 

    There was the predictable Apple startup sound that no one, not even the tech team at the high school, could seem to silence on the Macs. I quickly clicked onto Chrome, remembering my meetup my therapist that my mom had scheduled. I knew I’d have to print out the letter I had written to myself about Zoe.

 

    “Remember to print out one of those letters you wrote, Evan!” My mom had said as I walked out the door that morning. Her voice had been high, she was no doubt happy that it was Friday and the weekend was coming soon.

 

    I wasn’t sure why she was so happy about the weekend, she still had to work weekends. It wasn’t like people stopping getting sick or something just because Saturday rolled around. If anything, it only got worse.

 

    Still, I smiled slightly at her voice in my memory, opening the Google Doc that I had on my Drive and hitting the ‘Print’ button under ‘File’. I heard the sound of the printer working, shuffling papers and whirring quietly from the corner.

 

    The sound of footsteps mixed in with the sound of the printer. I didn’t bother to look up to see who was coming in, it was probably just Mrs Parpart doing some more video editing on her iMac during her lunch period.

 

    Clicking onto a new tab, I started looking up anything I could find on the chaos theory I had so stupidly brought up during my math class. I took one look at each website before bookmarking it and copy and pasting the text onto a new Google Doc and preparing to print it out for later.

 

    After fifteen minutes of quickly finding every I could out about the chaos theory - which I was right about how it explained why life was so crazy and how no one could ever predict the future - I printed all of the documents out at once. I worried that the poor, ancient printer might explode, but I wanted to get to eating my lunch at some point in my lunch hour before arriving in my next class no less than twenty minutes early.

 

    The usual sounds of the printer working filled the room, and I ran my fingers over my cast dejectedly. I remembered my fall, the sudden pain that filled my arm before I could feel nothing. The perfectly white cast had no signatures from anyone at school. Mom had told me to get someone to sign it, so I hoped that I could convince a teacher to sign it before the end of the day.

 

    The sound of footsteps were heard again, and this time I turned around. I smiled, ready to talk to Mrs Parpart. She didn’t really care that I spent time here, and she would usually just edit and talk about her two sons while I sat quietly in listened. She’d love to sign my cast, it might even make her day. And the best part, she followed the rule of no Squips in the school, so I wouldn't have to stare at a dizzying blip of light over her shoulder.

 

    Instead, as I turned around, I was faced with a fellow student. A Senior, Connor Murphy.

 

    I blushed at his appearance, not expecting him of all people to show up. I quickly whipped back around to face Mac number 11, pretending that I was typing. In all reality, I was just filling the Google search box with gibberish as I tried to force myself to think of something to do, to say.

 

    “Are these yours?” Connor’s voice snapped me out of my anxiety for a second. I turned around, my heart beating faster than it usually did when I had a social interaction with people.

 

    Connor held all of the papers that I had printed out in his hand. His arm was extended out towards me, he wanted me to take the papers. I didn't understand why he was being so nice, and I questioned it, but it didn't once cross my mind to snub him and not take the papers.

 

    If he had read my letter about Zoe, I was done for. I gulped and nodded, trying to smile. I don’t know what expression actually came out across my face, but I hoped it wasn’t too ugly or off putting.

 

    “Thank you.” I smiled and took the papers he offered me. They were all of the chaos theory ones I had just printed out, with the letter about Zoe still on the bottom, unread. I quickly shoved the papers into my backpack and pulled out the lunch I had packed myself, hoping to avoid conversation by eating food.

 

    “Why are you studying chaos theory?” Connor asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely curious or just trying to pass the time. It was just the effect that Connor had on people, they were unable to figure him out. “Some kind of science project or whatever?”

 

    “Math class, actually.” I replied, my voice low. I didn’t look Connor in the eyes, and instead focussed on my shoes, tracing the lines of the design with my eyes.

 

    “Sounds advanced.” Connor said, and I could hear something acute to laughter in his voice. I couldn’t be sure, because I’d never heard of Connor Murphy ever smiling or laughing. “No one signed yet?”

 

     “Huh?” I looked up from my shoes to see Connor looking at my cast. Suddenly, it felt like it weighed a million pounds and was crushing my arm slowly. “Yeah, no one’s signed yet.”

 

    “Well, let me, then.” Connor reached into his pocket and grabbed a black Sharpie before I could even protest.

 

   Connor quickly grabbed my arm with a steady hand and wrote his name in large, black letters over the pristine white cast. His name took up almost all of the space on the cast, making it seem much less pathetic than before.

 

    “Now we can both pretend like we have friends.” He said, his voice sounded sad and happy at the same time. He quickly put the Sharpie back into his pocket and placed his hands on his knees.

 

     That was when I realized something that had made me wonder since I first saw him, but I hadn’t been able to put my finger onto it until now.

 

    “You don’t have your Squip activated.” I realized aloud, looking Connor in the eyes. He made a nervous face and his eyes clouded over in a way that told me that he didn’t want to talk about the topic I had brought up.

 

    “I disconnected it for the day.” Connor replied, his words short and precise. I knew that Squips could be shut off, but I had never heard of anyone shutting theirs off just because they didn’t want to talk of them. Especially not a teenager. Squips were almost necessary to survive high school.

 

    “Oh.” Was all I could think to say. I started playing with my fingers again, trying to ignore the awkward silence that had fallen over Connor and I.

 

    “Well, Hansen, I have to get back to lunch.” Connor stood up, walking in large strides over to the door of the computer lab. He hesitated at the last second, as if he were going to turn around have a conversation with me about something. But he thought better of it, and kept moving.

 

    Once he was gone I looked down at my cast, which now had a name on it. I traced his name with my finger, happy that I would have something good to report to Mom tonight. Connor has signed my cast, I had a friend, and she didn’t have to worry about me.

 

    And the best part? My letter to myself was safe from prying eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

    “Welcome home, Evan.”

 

    My whispered greeting to myself bounced off of the walls of the kitchen as I slowly closed the door to my house behind me. I set my backpack down onto the table carefully, not wanting to crush any of the papers in it. I flipped the on the lights with my left elbow, smiling slightly at the stunt.

 

     The kitchen was small, with counters lining the walls on almost every side. In the middle was a too-large table that seemed to take up all of the space that wasn’t taken up by the counter. The oven and fridge were both older than I was, and they both were still working better than anything than the new ones my neighbors had to replace every five years.

 

    My eyes wandered the old, familiar walls that had pictures of roosters and chickens and perfectly created meals, over an unpleasant yellow backdrop that was the wall. The off-white of the oven and fridge made the unpleasant yellow seem even worse. But the dark wood of the table and the counters were a good change from the rest of the decor.

 

    I walked over to the kitchen cupboards and took out some chocolate chips. Chocolate is the answer to all life’s problems, as far as I’m concerned. People will hate you. Situations will go from bad to worse. But chocolate will never never hurt you, or least it hasn’t turned on me yet.

 

    The bag was unopened, Mom knew how much I loved the dumb cooking supplies that were inside of the cheery yellow plastic wrapping. I picked up my bag from the table, careful not to knock over the napkin holder or the salt and pepper shakers that were sitting in the perfect center of the table.

 

    Holding my snack in one hand, and my school work in the other, I walked to my bedroom. I pushed open the door effortlessly, and I was welcomed to the cleanest, most pristine room a teenage boy could have.

 

    There were no piles of clothes littering the ground, no naughty posters plastered on the walls. My clothes were contained in a chest of drawers that was on the farthest wall away from the door, and the posters that were up on my walls were ones of trees from all over the world.

 

    Above my bed was the most amazing tree I’d ever seen. It was a big oak, and I loved it because it had leaves the size of adult hands, and its bark was so perfectly colored. Mom had gotten me the poster as an effort to save the forest the tree was in from being cut down, buy posters and an environmental agency could buy out the land and save the trees.

 

    The walls of my bedroom were a light blue, and my window was slightly ajar to let in some airflow into my otherwise claustrophobic room. My blue curtains swayed in the wind. The floor was wood, which meant that on cold mornings my feet would freeze when they were with or without socks. I had covered the floor in multicolored throw rugs that were of all shapes and sizes.

 

    I placed my bag down on the floor next to my bed and opened the laptop bag I kept my laptop in. I pulled out my laptop, brushing my fingers against the perfect plastic that my laptop was made out of. The Dell logo was engraved on the back of the screen, in silver lettering over the black laptop.

 

    Since I didn’t have a Squip, a laptop was needed for me to be able to function in the world and get on the Internet. With a Squip, I would be able to connect to the Internet effortlessly, and have the Squip type things on documents by me just thinking the words. It was how essays could be written in under an hour.

 

    I could still remember the first time Mom told me that I couldn’t have a Squip. I was pretty young, in fifth grade, when most kids get a Squip. Implantations in the brain to be able to see Squips are given to each child at birth, but Squips are usually implanted until age ten due to brain functions that I couldn’t understand then, and still can’t understand now.

 

    The doctor was unable to understand why the Squip he had had me swallow wasn’t working. He assumed a faulty Squip, and he had me swallow another one when I came back two days later. But, when it didn’t work again, the doctor realized that it might be a problem with my brain.

 

     A couple of tests later, my mother's fears came true: I couldn’t have a Squip in my head. I would be forever different from everyone else, I’d have to constantly use computers, and I’d never have the web of intercommunications that all Squip users enjoy.

 

    I got over the fact I didn’t have a Squip pretty quickly, it just wasn’t something I was too worried about until I was in middle school. That was when socially is was unacceptable to not have a Squip. This, mixed with my social anxiety, made the perfect storm for me. Sadly, I hadn’t yet reached the eye of the hurricane I seemed to live in.

 

    Opening my laptop, I saw the Dell logo flash across the screen as the screen asked me for my password to access my laptop’s full capabilities. I typed in my password, and I was greeted with my desktop image of a large palm tree from hawaii.

 

    I clicked on Chrome, preparing to work on my essay on the chaos theory. I had read through each of the papers I had printed during the study hall I had during the last period of my day. The chaos theory was pretty simple to explain, as long as one just explained the basics. There was a lot of science that went into the chaos theory, but none of it was too hard for the average high school student - or teacher - to understand.

 

    I ripped open the bag of chocolate chips with my teeth, and dumped some of the bag right into my mouth. I smiled, feeling happy that if I was going to suffer through this dumb essay, at least I was going to suffer through it with the help of chocolate.

 

    The Google Doc was working out perfectly, and I had gotten done the introduction and the first body paragraph by the time that 6pm rolled around. My stomach told me that I had to eat something soon, and I slowly walked into the kitchen after closing my laptop.

 

    I padded to the kitchen in my sock covered feet and rummaged through the cupboards for something for me to eat. Mom or I had to go out grocery shopping soon, because there wasn’t much to eat. I finally decided that I’d cook myself up some ramen, it wasn’t like I could burn the house down making noodles.

 

    I made myself some ramen on the stove, and I added some mushrooms and peppers that Mom had in the fridge (one of the few fresh foods that were still in the house). I took my time eating, it wasn’t like I wanted to rush back to my room to finish the essay. All in all, I wasn’t having a too bad a Friday night.

 

    If Mr David had stuck that assignment on anyone else in my class, it might have ruined their weekend. But, like most of my weekends, this weekend was going to be spent by doing homework. The semester was ending soon, and the teachers were happily giving everyone more work than the average teenager could properly do.

 

     By 6:30pm, I was done eating and I cleaned the dishes in the sink, along with the ones I had just used. The warm water cascading over my hands helped to calm me down, and it made me feel better than I had felt all day. Once all of the dishes that needed to be cleaned were cleaned, I dried them and put them back where they came from.

 

    Walking back to my room, I decided that I’d do all of my essay writing for math class tonight and then work on my other homework tomorrow. Since I didn’t have to work this weekend, it would be the perfect time to get done all of the upcoming assignments the teachers had put in Google Classroom that were still a few weeks out.

 

    I’m not a nerd, I just have nothing better to do.

 

    The rest of the essay wasn’t as easy to write the first part. Turns out chaos theory is pretty complicated, and it needed a seven paragraph essay and not a five paragraph essay. By the time I was finally done, half my essay was underlined with angry, bent red lines that indicated a misspelled word or grammatical error.

 

    “I’ll edit it in the morning.” I whispered sleepily to myself. I cast a sidelong glance at the digital clock on my nightable, and I saw that I had spent four hours finishing up the essay that I wasn’t even supposed to have assigned to me. My head was pounding because I had stared at my computer’s screen too long, and the colors in my room looked weird.

 

    I reached down into my laptop bag, and fished out the charger that was sitting inside of the black bag. I plugged the charger into the wall, and began to charge my laptop in anticipation for my long weekend of homework. The little red light on the side of laptop flashed hypnotically, telling me that the laptop was close to being dead, but still charging.

 

    Pushing myself off of my bed, I walked over to my dresser and changed into my pajamas. I picked out my clothes more based on comfort than anything, and my pajamas were no different. They consisted of a grey shirt that had been washed so many times that it felt like a cloud, and some old soft pants that were a black, white and grey plaid pattern.

 

    Before I crawled into bed, ready to sleep off the headache that was putting pressure and pain in my temples, I turned off my light and opened my window a tad bit more to let in the cool outside air. When I finally got to nestle under my blankets, I laid my head on my pillow. Then a miracle happened.

 

    For the first time since I was a child, I didn’t spend an hour agonising over all of the embarrassing things I had done that day or worrying about how terrible tomorrow would be. Instead, I fell right to sleep.

 

  My dreams were happily nonexistent.

 

* * *

 

 

“Calibration in process. Please excuse some mild discomfort.”

 

    A splitting pain in my head woke up, along with a voice. I pulled my body into a sitting position, trying to look around to see who was speaking to me while I was trying to sleep. My body was sticky with sweat and my muscles felt sore and overused, even though I didn’t have PE until next semester and I had walked home many hours ago now.

 

    “Calibration complete. Access procedure: initiated.”

 

    The pain got worse, until I wasn’t sure if I could keep silent any longer. I wanted to cry out, but I worried that, because it was still dark out, if Mom came back and heard me yelling, she might freak out and call the cops. I didn’t want to freak her out, so I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

 

    And I wasn’t sure I wanted to report to the cops over a disembodied voice in my head that was causing me the most painful headache I’d ever had to live through.

 

     “Accessing: neural memory. Accessing: muscle memory. Access procedure complete. Evan Hansen, welcome to your Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor. Your Squip.”

 

     “Squip?” I whispered in wonder, a small smile creeping across my face at the words ‘your Squip’. I threw my blankets off of my torso, and looking around for the little speck of light that was a Squip. “I thought I couldn’t have a Squip. . . What is going on?”

 

    I stood up, my body swaying a tad in my fear of what had just happened. Had I somehow ingested a Squip without knowing? Or were the ones that I had had deactivated from all those years ago coming back to take revenge like evil AI computer programs do in the movies? Was this some kind of prank that someone was pulling on me? Was it Jared’s doing?

 

    I looked down at my cast, seeing that Connor’s name was still on it. I pinched my other arm that I didn’t have a cast on, and but it didn’t wake me up. I tried again, and pain shot up my arm. Fearfully, I searched my room with my eyes for my Squip, now that I knew I wasn’t dreaming this whole thing.

 

    My anxiety made me still with fear, I would sometimes just fully shut down when I didn’t have the ability to fully construct sentences due to my fear.

 

    “Hansen?” The voice that spoke sounded nothing like the cold, dead computer voice that had caused me so much pain before. My shoulders stiffened and I debated turning around to face the Squip, knowing that it was behind me based on how the voice sounded in my ears.

 

     On the one hand, I wouldn’t be a social outcast anymore if I had a Squip. But on the other, I’d have to figure out what the heck had just happened, and that would mean investigating, and it was the middle of the night.

 

    “Are you my Squip?” I asked, drawing my shoulders close in a defensive position. I knew I was asking a dumb question, but I refused to turn around until I got an answer. Maybe I was just hearing things or this was a dream.

 

    “I think so.” The voice said, and it sounded like a male voice I had heard before. Slightly angry and rough, yet also powerless and clean. Could it be?

 

    “Connor?” I gasped as I saw him. His body, hair and clothes and were all was semi-opaque, like how all Squips look. He was surrounded by a grey light I had never seen before. It was halfway between darkness and pure, white light it was perfect for his personality.

 

    “How is this possible?” He wondered aloud, slightly disgruntled and angry. “I’m supposed to be dead, not living as someone’s Squip. What did you do, Hansen?”

 

     Connor spoke my last name with anger enough to make me pale and hold my hands up in surrender while my heart thundered in my chest. He sneered at me, his grey light becoming slightly more black as his mood became worse and worse.

 

    “Why would you be dead?” I cocked my head to the side, lowering my hands back down to my sides against my better judgement. “Connor, what happened?”

 

    “I don’t want to talk about it.” Connor became suddenly closed off, turning away from me. “Maybe this is my punishment for the way I lived. I’m stuck with _Evan Hansen_ of all people for the rest of eternity. Great.”

 

    “Hey!” I cried, raising up a finger in my defense, “I’m not that bad!”

 

    “Yes, you are that bad.” Connor said flatly, giving me a sideways glance through his hair. “You really are, Hansen.”

 

    “Stop calling me ‘Hansen’.” I ordered quietly, sitting down on my bed. My order came out sounding more like a plea with my sleepy voice. “It makes me sound like I’m a little kid again.”

 

    “The way you decorate your room it does make you seem like a little kid.” Connor fired back, his eyes scanning my walls in the near-darkness in my room. There was a street light that was allowing some illumination into my room, but it was mostly dark. “Jesus, Hansen, got enough trees?”

 

    “I like trees, okay?” I blushed, feeling a stutter coming on. I pushed it down and forced myself to speak normally. “At least I don’t shop exclusively at Hot Topic.”

 

    “You crossed the line, Hansen.” Connor stared daggers into me, and I shied away from his stare. “I don’t shop at Hot Topic, contrary to speculation.”

 

    “I’ll stop teasing you about Hot Topic if you stop calling me ‘Hansen’.” I crossed my arms over my chest, happy with myself for the good negotiating skills I was using. “How does that sound?”

 

    “The more you hate me calling you Hansen the more I’m going to call you Hansen, Hansen.” Connor retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked smugly at me, smirking slightly. I frowned and blushed, looking away. “You can’t escape me, and I can’t escape you. I’m going to make the best of this situation, for myself, that is.”

 

    “Good for you.” I replied, starting to feel fatigue come back to my body. My eyelids were getting heavy, and the surprise of Connor showing up - as my Squip, no less - had worn off. I was tired, and I needed to get some sleep.

 

    “What am I supposed to do while you’re sleeping?” Connor whined, knowing what was coming as my eyelids fluttered. I yawned loudly and shrugged at his question before responding.

 

    “Explore my room, maybe?” I suggested with a shrug. “I really don’t care, as long as I can get some good, decent sleep.”

 

    “Okay.” Connor resigned, moving to sit on the top of my bedframe. “It’s a little after 3am, you should try and get some sleep before tomorrow. Then we can start our weekend.”

 

    I looked up at Connor as I laid my head down on my pillow. How was it that the guy who I was afraid of just a few hours ago was now my Squip? How was it that I was able to have a person as my Squip? How was I able to even have a Squip, after the doctors said that my mind just couldn’t handle it? Was it possible that I had somehow been able to overcome my ability to not have a Squip? Was Jared behind this somehow?

 

    The questions swarmed in my head like angry wasps, but I silenced them. I wondered if Connor could read my thoughts, and if he knew about my crush on his sister, Zoe. I hoped not, or else I was in for a world of pain, since now I knew that Squips could, in fact, give people nasty headaches.

 

    “Night, Connor.” I whispered as I got myself comfortable in my bed, hoping for another dreamless sleep. But one that wouldn’t be disrupted by immense pain this time.

 

    Connor said nothing to indicate he had heard my words.


	2. Intimately Talking About Our Feelings and Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still getting used to having a Squip, Evan begins to ask Connor most questions about how he is a Squip, and what is going on. Unable to answer the questions, both boys are struggling to understand Squips and how the mechanics work. Things only seem to get more stressful when Evan receives a call from a family friend who - for reasons Evan cannot understand - seems to want to be actual friends for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One teensy note is that I'm going to try to filter the extreme language out of this story, to just make it more 'family friendly' or whatever. But I just think that since I can't really warn people for it in the Archive Warnings, I should warn you now that there isn't any extreme language out of context.  
> Also, the positive reaction this story has gotten has been amazing! Thank you so much for anyone who commented or left kudos on this story! It really means the world!  
> Enjoy the story!

“Is this how you spend all of your weekends?”

 

    I was still getting used to having a Squip, and being able to not have to type out all of my school papers now. I still typed them out, anyways, old habits die hard. But constantly having a voice in my head that could tell me anything it wanted, at whatever time it wanted to speak, was still new to me. It was creepy, I wasn't sure I'd ever get used to it.

 

    “Yeah, if I don’t work I spend my weekends doing homework.” I replied, looking over my laptop’s screen to see Connor sitting on my night table. He was looking around my room in the daylight and I hoped that he could see why I loved my tree posters so much.

 

    I leaned back on my headboard, lifting my hands off of my laptop’s keyboard. Connor’s black shirt, pants and boots looked out of place against the backdrop of my wooden night table. It was made out of oak wood, my favorite kind of wood and my favorite kind of tree. Connor looked like a tiny black smudge on the perfectly clean, light colored wood.

 

     “That’s just sad.” Connor said, kicking his feet as they hung off of the side of the night table. I wasn’t sure how Connor was going to spend his time with me as my Squip, it wasn’t like I was going to use him to become more cool or chill with his help. “You don’t do anything else? Really?”

 

    “Well, sometimes I’ll go on walks.” I frowned, thinking about my usual weekend activities when I didn’t have school work or paid work to do. “My mom and I will also try and spend time together whenever we get the chance to get away from everything. It just feels nice to see her without having her be so stressed all the time.”

 

    “Why is she so stressed all the time?” Connor asked, and I blinked in surprise at his question. I looked him in the eyes, and I saw that he was being at least somewhat sincere. I closed my laptop and sighed, trying to find a way to sum up everything in a quick couple of sentences. I didn't want to bore him with all of the details.

 

     “Well, the biggest stressor she has would be work, I guess.” I ran a hand through my hair, wondering if Mom would want me to be telling my Squip all of the things that made her life tough. “She’s also going to school on the side, she’s studying to be a lawyer. She doesn’t usually get home until really late. Then there’s me with my school - both high school and college - and my social anxiety that she is always trying to fix.”

 

    “Fix?” Connor questioned, looking up from his hands and raising an eyebrow at my words. “What do you mean, fix?”

 

    “She’s trying to fix me, I meant what I said.” I looked down at my own hands. Fear that I had said too much was building in me. Did I make Mom sound like a bad mother? Had I just come off as crazy? Did Connor understand what I was saying? “She has me going to a therapist, and I’m taking some pills to help with the anxiety.”

 

     “It sounds like she really cares.” Connor observed, though I thought I could hear a bitter note in his voice. Connor absent mindedly picked at the chipping black polish that coated his fingernails. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, where’s your dad?”

 

    “He’s. . . out of the picture.” I blushed, feeling ashamed. I knew that Connor had been a part of the flawless American family. Two happy kids, the perfect husband and wife. They had the white picket fence, too, though I wasn’t sure about the dog. “He lives with my stepmom in Colorado.”

 

    I expected Connor to apologize, like most people do when they hear my dad left. Or saying something with lots of feeling, though it wasn’t very Connor to express any feeling other than anger. Or maybe he would tell me that everything was going to be okay, that my dad didn’t leave because of me.

 

    Instead, he said, “That sucks,” in a quiet voice.

 

    His reaction took my aback, but I tried to cover up the fact that I was slightly surprised at Connor’s words. He didn’t seem to care, he didn’t look at me differently. I wasn’t just the kiddie whose daddy left while he was sitting in a circle with his classmates in kindergarten, clapping and singing. I was just Evan Hansen to him, and it was an amazing feeling.

 

    “Yeah, it does suck.” I agreed, not sure how to direct the rest of the conversation. I wondered if Connor even wanted to keep speaking with me, it wasn’t like I had an interesting or amazing life. It was quite boring and mundane, really.

 

    “Do you have an other members of your family?” Connor shifted his position to have one leg draped over the side of my night table, and the other he hugged close to his chest with both of his arms. He didn’t like to sit still, I was beginning to notice.

 

    “No, not really.” I admitted, picking at the plaster on my cast again. “My mom and dad only had one kid, and I’m him. I had a pet hamster, one time, after my dad left. My mom and I buried him in the backyard.”

 

    “Hamster, huh?” Connor frowned, finding the fact I had had a pet hamster amusing. It was the most delighted I had seem him, ever. “I never would have taken you for the hamster type, Hansen. More the cat type, actually.”

 

    “I’m allergic, actually.” I looked away, feeling wrong to have let down Connor’s fantasy. “But my mom likes cats. I always wanted a dog, to be honest. They’re bigger, yes, but I just wanted to have a friend who I could talk to sometimes.”

 

    “I had a dog as a kid.” Connor spoke as if he were just finding out the answer to life. His eyes glassed over, and he focused his gaze down onto the floor. “His name was Alexander, Alex for short. He was a lab, and a big one at that. He never really liked me, he was more Zoe’s dog. But when he died everyone was pretty broken up. Well, other than my dad. He seemed happy to not have the dog hair in the house.”

 

    After a second, I realized that I had to say something. I didn’t have anything to say, so I just said the first thing that came to mind, my voice high and odd sounding, “Dogs and shedding. . . Yikes.”

 

    “Your conversation skills. . . Yikes.” Connor replied, glaring at me.

 

    “So, what was growing up with Zoe like?” I asked, trying to get myself back to not being hated by Connor, just disliked. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to grow up with a brother or sister.”

 

    “It was. . . I don’t know, being kids together?” Connor tried the words out on his tongue, as if they were foreign. “She was pretty girly growing up, so I’d put bugs in her room. Whenever our mom would make us go outside and play, I would dig up worms and throw them at her. Zoe and Alex would just go to our neighbor’s house to escape. There was a nice girl and her little brother who lived next to us when they were younger. Her and Zoe were good friends.”

 

    “You were kind of a stereotypical older brother, weren’t you?” I smirked, happily imagining Zoe as a little girl, with her dog and running away from a worm. The image made me smile, it was so hard to think that those two people were the same person. “Did you ever tug on her pigtails when she was little?”

 

    “She never wore pigtails.” Connor shrugged. He didn’t say anything else, not thinking it was necessary. But I was soaking up every detail, I loved being able to talk about Zoe, and not have it sound weird when I talked about her.

 

     “How is she, by the way?” I asked, twisting my hands in my fear anticipation of hearing about Zoe’s life. I loved how she just acted, she didn’t wait to think about what other people would think or do, she just did things because she wanted to. She was fearless.

 

    “You seem awful interested in my sister, Hansen.” Connor’s voice was emotionless, making it sound like his intentions were cruel and harsh. I paled, wondering if Connor had already looked inside my mind - like Squips could do - and he already knew that I liked his sister.

 

    “Well, she’s pretty nice.” I traced, Connor’s name on my cast, trying to calm myself down.  “I don’t mean ‘pretty’ pretty, I mean just that she’s nice. Very nice. But she's also pretty, not saying she isn't. But not too nice, just nice. She’s awesome, really.”

 

    Connor gave me a cold look, shifting so that his legs were curled up under him. He was figuring me out, and my awkward smile and sweating forehead probably weren’t helping my case at all. I wished I could calm down, but I was so flustered and the longer Connor stared at me, the worse I seemed to get.

 

    “Whatever, Hansen.” Connor rolled his eyes, throwing his legs out from under his body and laying on his back, lacing his fingers together and putting them between his head and my wooden night table.

 

     Connor’s hair spilled out around his head, making it look like he had a dark halo surrounding his head. Even with the grey light that illuminated him, he still looked like his normal self. I wondered what he would look like if it were white light that was surrounding him, it might him look like an angel, what with the hair and everything.

 

    “I always thought that when I got a Squip my life would change somehow, yet I don’t see any huge change.” I said, looking my body up and down to see if I could notice any physical changes that had happened to myself. “But I guess now I’m finally on the same level as everyone else in the world. This feels strange, really. No offense to you, Connor! You’re a great Squip!”

 

    “Hansen, you’ve just got a voice in your head who is also a hologram.” Connor brushed off my words, acting like I had just said something mundane. In all reality, I had just told Connor one of the things that I had always kept to myself out of fear of how people would think of me. “I still don’t know how to be a Squip. I can’t access your memories, but I think that other Squips can do that.”

 

    “Wouldn’t you know what a Squip can do?” I asked, cocking my head to the side in my confusion. Connor stiffened at my words, his whole body going tense. “You had one, right? I mean, your dad kind of works for the company that came up with the technology in the first place, right?”

 

    “Yeah, my dad works for SquipTech.” Connor admitted, his voice sounding resigned. He sounded like he wanted to talk about anything else but what I had just brought up. “But he never really talked about his job at home. But no, I never had a Squip. Apparently, I’m not wired to have one.”

 

    “I thought that it was just a rare thing.” I gasped. I watched Connor collapse in on himself, pulling himself up into a sitting postilion and then pulling his knees to his chest and placing his chin on top of his knees. He was trying to make himself smaller, I realized. “But I guess that we’re both a part of the small portion of the population who doesn’t have Squips. Why did you always lie about having yours turned off?”

 

    “I guess it was just embarrassing, you know?” Connor’s voice was barely audible. “I mean, my dad gets paid a lot of money for the company that makes Squips, yet his son can’t even have one implanted in his head. People talked, and it just felt better to lie and tell everyone that my Squip was ‘too advanced’ and would give me headaches if I had it out for too long.”

 

    “You spend so much worrying about your facade, so you allowed yourself to become unhappy.” I observed, and I could see Connor cringe. Maybe I was wrong and he was just reacting to my incorrect theory, but I could see that, somewhere deep down, I was correct.

 

    “That’s what happened, yeah.” Connor admitted, sitting up and running his hands through his hair before hugging his knees again. “I’m done talking. Have fun finishing up your homework, Hansen.”

 

    With a small flicker of grey light, Connor disappeared from my vision before I could say anything else to him. I hoped that he was okay, and not angry at me for what I had said. But, for the first time that I had seen, it wasn’t anger that was radiating from Connor Murphy.

 

     It was pain.

 

* * *

 

 

“Done, finally.”

 

    It felt nice to just announce to the world that I had finished my essay on the chaos theory for Mr David. I felt like I had won the battle, and felt like I wanted to go on a victory walk through some forest somewhere. Where I went didn’t matter, just that the forest looked amazing.

 

    Connor was still hiding himself away from me, and I wasn’t sure where. I wondered where he could possibly be, but I didn’t have any logical ideas. I hadn’t done too much Squip research, mainly because I didn’t have a Squip, so I couldn’t even make a guess. The only things I knew about the technology that were concrete were that Squips were awesome and they could alter someone’s personality to get them farther in life.

 

     Squips were loved by many, hated by some. There were some people in the world who choose not to get Squips in their heads. These people were few and far between, but I knew that they were out there. They would show up on the news, and I would catch a few sound bytes of it sometimes on the radio or on the TV.

 

    The Squip haters would say that the Squips were a part of some agenda, that it was just another form of Big Brother, watching us on an unprecedented and worldwide scale. They  _ feared _ Squips more than they hated them, so it made them sound paranoid and crazy on TV and over the radio during interviews.

 

     Squips inspired people, and they destroyed people. The main argument that people had against Squips was that they would change people drastically, seemingly overnight. (And the surveillance, of course.) The number of people who had had their lives changed radically by Squips was in the hundreds. But very few became celebrities, politicians, inventors, authors or insanely popular people with real power.

 

     The way that many saw Squips was that they were just things for people to use, and abuse if necessary. Squip rights groups were slowly popping up, but they weren’t very well liked by the majority of Squip users. The people who use Squips don’t like to think of their Squip as a person, just a machine. To many there were nothing more than a tool to have the perfect life.

 

    Yet, somehow, imperfect lives still existed. My family and I were living proof of that.

 

    Closing my laptop, I took a deep breath and stopped thinking about Squips. It was funny how before I wouldn’t spend any time wondering about Squips or worrying about them, but now that I had one I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had finally made it to the other side, I was finally just like everyone else after all this time.

 

    I hoped Connor was okay with the fact that I was wondering so much about Squips. Maybe I would have to do some research, but I knew that lunch was slowly sneaking up on me. I was having second thoughts about skipping breakfast, but I had slept in late after getting a rude awakening in the middle of the night.

 

     I moved my laptop from my lap to the bag where I kept it, getting ready to get up and leave my room for the first time all day. My stomach, angry that I hadn’t eaten breakfast, was calling for me to eat some lunch before I fell over from low blood sugar.

 

     I wasn’t sure what I was going to eat, but I knew that I would have something at least somewhat nourishing. Smiling, I took some more chocolate chips from the yellow bag that contained them, figuring that I could always just take a walk and feel better about consuming so much chocolate.

 

    My feet moved with learned silence across the carpeted hallways of the only home I’d ever known. My stomach panged with each step I took, and I knew that I had messed up. I would usually not take care of myself very well when I wasn’t working. Remembering threes good meals a day was something that would slip my mind many times if I wasn’t sitting the kitchen or sitting with a lunch at school.

 

    Rummaging through the cupboards in the ugly yellow kitchen in my home, I found sandwich materials. I figured that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was healthy, it was what I had lived on when I was a kid, it had to be good, right? They were my mom's favorite food to make for me, mainly because they were so easy to concoct.

 

    I removed the peanut butter and jelly from the cupboards, and I rummaged in the silverware drawer in an attempt to find a clean butter knife so I could create a sandwich for myself to eat. I didn’t find one, so I opened up the dishwasher, and took out the first butter knife I saw. Before removing my hand from the dishwasher, I also selected a simple, chipped, white plate from the bottom shelf.

 

    Slapping peanut butter onto one slice of bread, and jelly onto the other, and smashing them together I created three sandwiches and ate one before Connor showed up again, flickering into my vision in a flash of grey light.

 

    “Welcome back.” I greeted him a happy voice, I wasn’t sure if the words that came out of my mouth were the words ‘welcome back’, but it was what I was trying to convey to him. The sandwich in my mouth made it a little bit hard to talk in coherent English.

 

     “What are you eating?” Connor looked at the sandwiches I had made with something between wonder and disgust. I couldn’t place the look he was giving my lunch, but it almost offended me. “What are you, five? Who still eats PB&J when they're in high school?”

 

    “Me, I still eat peanut butter and jelly.” I replied to Connor’s question. I set my sandwich down onto the plate I had set on the kitchen table, and crossed my arms over my chest. “What’s so wrong with eating a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

 

     “It’s just. . . Childish.” Connor shrugged, picking at his black nail polish. It was chipped slightly, and it looked like it really needed to be redone. I wondered if he could redo it now that he was a Squip, or if it would just fix itself automatically.

 

    “Well, I like what I like and I don't think it’s childish.” I retorted, no longer feeling like Connor was the scary kid in my classes. No, now he was my Squip, whether he liked it or not. We were equals now, and we were going to become friends one day, hopefully.

 

    “Hey, I think someone is trying to contact you.” Connor’s voice sounded confused, and he raised an eyebrow at me. I returned the look, trying to remind him that I also knew next to nothing about Squips. “I think I'm going to answer, if I can.”

 

     In front of me, a large holographic screen appeared with Jared’s face on it. In the background behind Jared, there was a living room that looked nicely furnished, with mirrors and leather chairs. The walls were a silver color, and they almost shined in the sun that was streaming through the windows. The windows were framed by thick, rich velvet curtains that were a pure white.

 

     Jared’s Squip, a blonde girl with long hair and big eyes, was sitting on his shoulder. She had on a black scoopneck t-shirt and faded blue skinny jeans. Her shoes were black Vans, and it was a large contrast from Jared’s outfit of a plaid shirt and large black glasses. I couldn’t see the rest of Jared’s outfit - the camera wasn’t allowing me to see it - but I was guessing that he was wearing his usual jeans and Converse.

 

     “Evan Hansen?” Jared asked, and I shifted awkwardly in my seat. I worried that I had food on my face or something else embarrassing. “I didn't know you had a Squip. But you showed up on my friend list this morning, listed as if you’ve had a Squip since fifth grade.”

 

    “Friend list?” I asked, hope swelling in my chest. I had a friend, maybe. “Don't they have a category for family friends? Does this mean we're more than family friends now?”

 

    “Nope, still family friends.” Jared brushed off my comment quickly, searching my surroundings to find my Squip. I wondered how much of my kitchen he could see. Mom and I hadn’t cleaned it in a while, and I worried what Jared was going to think of it. “Where's your Squip, Evan? Is he hiding behind you or something?”

 

    “I'm right here.” Connor walked out from behind the holographic screen that Jared was looking at me through. Connor no longer looked like himself, his hair was pulled into a ponytail and he was wearing - of all things - a suit. “My name is Franta, and I’m Evan’s Squip. It’s nice to meet you, Jared.”

 

    “Franta?” Jared questioned, staring at Connor with a quizzical look. “Like the YouTuber my little sister is obsessed with? That Connor guy?”

 

    “No, not like him.” Connor defended himself with a straight face. I was impressed, I would have cracked under the pressure by now. “Franta is short for 'Fantastic' because I'm so fantastic, or at least that's what my parents told me.” 

 

     “I. . . Okay.” Jared seemed to be at a loss for something to say in response to Connor. “That's quite the reason. Wait, Squips have parents?”

 

     “Well, more like other Squips who teach us how to act and how to make humans more chill.” Connor seemed to be very good at lying, and I was very impressed. “I guess I just like to refer to them as ‘parents’. Most Squips do the same thing.”

 

    “We're learning so much, aren't we, Jared?” I smiled awkwardly, trying to smooth things over. What Connor - Franta - was saying was just basic, friendly stuff that most Squips knew, at least it had to look that way. And it had to keep looking that way.

 

     “When did you get a Squip?” Jared changed the subject, slightly angry that Connor had gotten snarky with him. “I thought you couldn't have one. Well, that was the rumor that was always going around the school.”

 

    “Well, I guess it just started work after about seven years of lying dormant in my mind.” I shrugged, telling Jared my theory. Connor and I were still both clueless as to why he was my Squip, but we were just trying to roll with it. We figured we'd figure it out eventually. “I'm going to go to a doctor later to figure it out, though.”

 

     “Squip doctors are the best.” Jared grinned, getting lost in a memory. “Mine was a perfect ten, I swear. She was amazing, so I had my Squip, Quinn, modeled after her.”

 

     Jared’s Squip, Quinn, glowed with pride. She smiled up at him, looking like he was everything she saw in life. I was slightly unnerved by the way she looked at him, it was almost a hungry look. I was suddenly happy that I had Connor instead of Quinn.

 

    “Thank you so much, Jared.” Quinn gushed, her smile widening beyond what I thought was possible to see on a human - or model human - face. “You really did a great job designing me.”

 

    Connor rolled his eyes at that, shifting his weight as he did so. I sympathised with him, but I didn’t want to be rude before I figured what Quinn’s personality was really like. I didn’t want to judge her after the first meeting and make the wrong judgement and hurt anyone’s feelings.

 

     “So, Jared, why  _ did _ you call?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. My question was legitimate and sincere, it really didn’t make any sense to me why Jared would call me. I told my mom he was nice to me, so his parents paid for some things of his, but it never went beyond that. “You’ve said it a million times before, we're just family friends. So why call?”

 

    “Because Evan Hansen, one of the people who doesn’t have a Squip, now gets one?” Jared smiled, and I could almost tell there was a motive to his call already, “I had to be the first to talk to you. I mean, I thought that you couldn’t have a Squip, right? Then, magically, you get one at around 3am last night, if my records are correct. Why the sudden change?”

 

    “What are you suggesting?” Connor sneered, acid dripping from each word. His shoulders were squared, and his whole body was tense and on edge. I was surprised by this, it wasn’t like Connor to protect anyone but his sister and himself. To stand up for anyone else was almost unheard of.

 

    “Oh, nothing, Franta.” Jared brushed off Connor’s comment with a wave of his hand. Jared looked and sounded like he was being serious. “I don’t think Evan has it in him to do anything shady or illegal, he’s just too nice. He apologizes for everything he does, and it isn’t like he has a little voice to tell him to do bad things.”

 

    “Thank you?” My voice was high, I wasn’t sure if what Jared had just said was supposed to be taken as a compliment or as an insult. Connor walked over to me, and sat down on the table next to my semi-eaten and completely untouched sandwiches.

 

     “So, if Evan’s morally perfect, what does that make you?” Connor asked, his eyes narrowing in delight to hear Jared’s response. It reminded me of how a cat showed happiness, by narrowing his eyes and looking smug. “Less than perfect? Child killer? Literal trash?”

 

     “It just makes me a normal human being.” Jared shrugged, pursing his lips. He seemed annoyed by Connor’s question, and Quinn was clearly bugged by the idea that Jared could be anything but perfect. “And I guess that makes you just a simple Squip that Evan got somehow. But how did Evan acquire you, Franta?”

 

   “I’m the Squip Hansen had in his head from a long time ago, but I wasn’t able to activate until now.” Connor spoke with a straight face, and it almost sounded like he was telling the truth as he knew it. It made me wonder if he was somehow correct. “Nothing illegal going on, just something to do with age and brain function capabilities.”

 

    “Sounds nerdy enough to be correct.” Jared feigned a yawn, like he always did whenever something became too ‘nerdy’ or ‘geeky’ for him. The funny thing was, he seemed be the perfect textbook example of a geeky outcast at our high school.

 

     Quinn, who had been pretty silent during the call, sat up straight and got wide eyes in surprise, a expression of near fear shattering her calm face. She flashed a warning red for a second and then turned to Jared, whispering something in his ear that also made shock shoot across his face.

 

    “What is it, Jared?” I asked, worried that something bad had happened. I clenched my fist, worrying about what could have happened. The possibilities were endless, from a world economic crash to Jared’s mother dying. “Is everything okay?”

 

    “Yeah, everything’s fine, Evan.” Jared gave me a halfhearted smile, the ends of his lips not moving. “Quinn just reminded me that I have to go and get my little sister from her dance recital. It’s really nothing, Evan.”

 

    “Good.” Connor replied coldly. Connor had never liked Jared, and he wasn’t holding back, even now that he was my Squip. “It’s been nice talking with you Jared, Quinn, but we really must go, too. Have a fun time with your sister, Jared.”

 

    Jared didn’t say anything in response, but Quinn shot Connor a very dirty look. She looked at me in about the same way, but her glare was less hateful when directed at me. It still made me squirm, it felt like Jared had programmed the perfect Squip for himself.

 

    The holographic screen collapsed quickly from a large rectangle, to be a slightly shorter rectangle, until it was just small sliver then it disappeared. The animation looked smooth, like whoever had coded it knew what they were doing. But, then again, SquipTech was a multimillion dollar company, so of course everything they did was perfect. Or at least appeared that way.

 

    “That was strange.” My voice broke the silence, as I looked down at Connor. He looked up at me and shrugged, removing the hair tie from his hair with a practiced grace. “It isn’t like Jared to just call whenever. Plus, I didn’t know his sister was a dancer. Good for her.”

 

    “Don’t you ever suspect anyone of anything, Hansen?” Connor gave a me a disappointed and ashamed look. He ran his left hand through his hair, helping it to flare out a bit at the ends. “Something was up with Jared and Quinn, in case you didn’t notice. There’s something going on.”

 

    “I think that we shouldn’t suspect Jared of anything without any proof of wrongdoing.” I crossed my arms over my chest, looking at Connor with the best glare I could muster. “I mean, our court systems are innocent until proven guilty. We should try and imitate that even outside of the courtroom.”

 

    “Whatever you want to think about him is fine,” Connor made a show of wrapping his hair tie about his left wrist, “But I don’t trust him. No matter what you say in his defense, Hansen, I won’t trust him until I have a reason to trust him. And he’s given no reason yet.”

 

    Connor, done with our conversation, flickered out of existence before I could say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More chapters to come soon, hopefully I can fall into a schedule of uploading on Monday or Tuesday. It all just depends on how much this story wants to be written, haha.  
> Have a great day, week and year!


	3. High School is a Two Player Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan goes to high school for the first time since getting a Squip, ready to face whatever is thrown at him. However, when Connor makes a large mistake, it leaves Evan questioning many things about their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suicide warning, only references, but please be cautious if that is something you don't handle very well.
> 
> The positive feedback this story has been getting has been amazing! Thank you thank you thank you so much! It means the world!  
> Enjoy the story!

“You ready for this, Hansen?”

 

    Connor’s voice sounded concerned and almost worried for my mental health. By that I mean it sounded less distant than usual. It was strange to hear Connor’s voice at all, but hearing it be something other than distant was ever stranger. For the millionth time in the last few days, I was sure that I was just asleep and everything that had happened was just one long dream.

 

    “Yeah, I think I’m ready for this.” I replied, setting my shoulders. I was ready to go and face my high school, I had to be ready. “I mean, there’s still a lot that could go wrong. And a lot of things will go wrong, I mean, I am me. So I’m as ready as I can be.”

 

    “Jesus. . .” Connor trailed off, facepalming. He had been spending most of Sunday and this morning trying to get me ready for going to school with a Squip for the first time. He was trying to get me to be more bold, and less afraid of everything. Needless to say, it wasn’t working.

 

     “I’m sorry, it is just so scary, Connor!” I felt like a kid as I fell back onto the bench that I was sitting on the armrest of. Connor, looking down at me with a disgusted glare, paced across my chest. I could feel him pacing on my chest, it was like having a small mammal walk across my chest.

 

     Silence fell over the small park that we were sitting at. Connor had proposed we come here before we went to school, there was a small park that I had gone to when I was a child on the path between school and my house. He said that coming here would allow me to air out my emotions and I would be able to think before running into a school with Squips communicating with each other, and with me.

 

     “This is going to be harder than I thought.” Connor sighed, finally giving up and collapsing on my chest. It was strange, now that I had a Squip he acted so melodramatic. “I guess that I should get myself ready, too. Now that I know I have the time.”

 

     “Does this mean you’re going to turn into Franta again?” I asked, a giddy tone growing in my voice. I suppressed a laugh by pressing my hand against my mouth. “With the ponytail and suit? I have to say, it looks weird yet perfect on you.”

 

    “It isn’t like I can do much else with my appearance without changing dramatically.” Connor said as he pulled his hair back into a ponytail. “And it doesn’t look that bad, really. I like looking like myself at all times, I hate having to cover up who I am.”

 

     “But aren’t you worried that someone might recognize you?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbows and sitting up as straight as possible without allowing Connor to fall off of my chest. “That could be damning, if someone saw that it was you. Am I using that word correctly? I don’t think I’m using that word correctly.”

 

    “No, you’re not using that word correctly.” Connor said in a fierce voice, his eyes flashing an emotion close to anger. “We haven’t done anything wrong, so they can’t accuse us of anything. Because we haven’t done anything bad, they can’t try us, so nothing we could do could be damning.”

 

     “Okay.” I said, watching Connor jump up my chest onto the bench’s backrest. Connor’s hands buried themselves into the cracks between the slabs of wood, and his feet found footholds as he pulled himself up. “So I just have to act normal? What if I see Zoe? What do I do then?”

 

    Panic rose in my chest, and I felt dizzy again. It was a good thing Connor woke me up two hours before school, so I could get ready and have plenty of time - nearly an hour and a half - to freak out about how school was going to go today.

 

    Connor, although very keen on my anxiety and what triggered it, still didn’t know about my crush on Zoe. I wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing, but I was leaning more towards calling it a good thing. I didn’t want to get Connor mad at me, he was already struggling enough trying to figure out how to be a Squip.

 

    Connor’s research on Squips had been extensive, yet he still didn’t fully understand how to execute all of the functions that most Squips were automatically programmed to know. He also had a fear that someone would know it was him, and it unnerved him. I asked him if he was becoming one of those Big Brother fearing crazies, and he glared at me and disappeared for a few hours.

 

    “Just act natural, okay?” Connor told me again, giving me a glare. He had climbed to the top of the bench, and with a snap of his fingers, grey light surrounded him. As the light faded away, his usual clothes were replaced with a black suit and a black tie. “Zoe won’t recognize me, and she never noticed you in the first place, so you’ll be fine.”

 

     “Hey!” I pointed at Connor, narrowing my eyes. Connor rolled his eyes at me trying to be scary and tough, he found the act almost amusing. “She did notice me! I was just super awkward, and it was just really awkward for both of us. So, yeah. But I still talked to her on multiple occasions!”

 

     “Yeah, whatever.” Connor threw his arm out in front of him, looking out at his fingers. With another flash of grey light, the black nail polish on his fingers was redone, the chips and gashes filling in with more black. “Just remember I’m going to be there with you, so you don’t have any excuse to freak out. So you’re not allowed to freak out, is what I’m trying say.”

 

     “Okay, I have someone.” I smiled at him, on an emotional high now. Connor had just said he was going to be there for me! I wanted to jump up and down and squeal like a little girl, he had just admitted he’d have my back! “Thank you, Connor.”

 

    “Not Connor, Franta. Got it?” Connor looked me in the eyes, his light brown eyes locking with my dark brown ones. I nodded once, pursing my lips. Connor smirked, as close as he had gotten to smiling. “Good, this actually might work.”

 

     “This  _ will _ work. I mean, I have a Squip now.” I smiled, running my hands through my hair. My cheeks were hurting from all of the smiling I was doing. “I’m going to be noticed now. I’m going to be more than I was before. I’m going to be more chill! This is going to be amazing!”

 

    “Don’t put too much faith in me, okay, Hansen?” Connor seemed almost scared as he spoke. He walked from the top of the bench onto my shoulder, sitting down and hanging his legs off the side of my shoulder, near my collarbone. “I’m still new to this. I’m going to make mistakes and miscalculations.”

 

    “I trust you, Connor.” I said, smiling at him and picking up my backpack from where it sat, leaning up against the post of the bench. “Nothing could go too wrong today, other than the normal things that always go wrong.”

 

    “That was a complete change in attitude, wow.” Connor frowned, unable to understand I had gotten so confident and ready to go to school. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he wondered what words or actions had caused my confidence.“I don’t understand it, Hansen, but I’m not disappointed. Let’s do this.”

 

     “Also, I have an appointment with my therapist tonight.” I realized, remembering how it felt when I left the therapist’s office.“So, that means you’ll have to come with. But I want to tell my mom at some other time, not have her find out I have a Squip from my therapist.”

 

    “I’m just going to turn off when you’re there.” Connor said, and I could hear the same bitter and angry tone in his voice from when I told him about my mom trying to ‘fix’ me. I frowned at this, did he really hate the idea of therapy that much? “I don’t care much for mental health facilities.”

 

     “Okay, most people don’t care for them either.” I conceded, hoping that Connor wasn’t in too bad a mood. I wanted my first day of high school with a Squip to be a good one. “It is usually a few hours long, I think I can find a way to reactivate you when the session is done.”

 

    “Awesome.” Connor said in an emotionless voice, zoning out and staring straight ahead. He played with his fingers, almost in an anxious way. It reminded me of children who were beyond nervous to get shots at the doctors. Those children did have a right to be afraid, though, it is proven that there is mercury in vaccines.

 

     The last leg of the walk to school was quiet. Normally, I would have listened to music (I’d taken to listening to all of the albums that the jazz band played in their concerts, always picking out the guitar solos that Zoe played) but I didn’t want to be so rude when Connor was literally sitting right next to my ear. So, instead of music, I listened to the sounds of the birds as they flitted from tree to tree, branch to branch, above my head.

 

    I watched the same trees pass me by that were always in the same place that they had been for years. Almost nothing had changed on the path that I took to school, just little things like new people moving into houses that sat along my path, and new little gardens and trees getting planted in any free spaces on the green space.

 

     My path to school was just one big green space in the otherwise concrete jungle. My hometown was called Joliet, named after some long-dead explorer who had once come to America to look at the ‘last frontier’ as it was known then. It seemed ironic how our town quickly cut down trees and put up houses, almost as if the builders didn’t want a single tree in a five mile radius. Because having a single tree left standing wasn’t called ‘progress’.

 

     Somehow, the center of town was spared from the tree-killing builders. I didn’t fully understand why or how, but my history classes told me that way back in the 1880’s, a group of people made sure that no one would cut down the trees in the center of town to keep it nice for future generations. These people built parks, and they soon became our Park and Recreation Department in our town. I had them to thank for the trees that still lined my chosen route to school.

 

    As I watched the perfect suburban houses pass me by, I looked up to the clear, blue sky. Soon the sky was covered up by perfectly green leaves that I knew could only come from one certain tree, a tree that I loved so much I had named. Before me stood a very large oak tree, which was a very special tree to me. I walked over the grass surrounding it to be right next to the tree.

 

     I brushed my fingers against my First Day of School Tree. It was a huge oak tree that had very large leaves. Each year, on the first day of school, I would brush my fingers against the bark of the tree for good luck. Doing this on any other day of the year was a bad omen in my eyes, but this was different. This was the first day of the rest of my life, just as important as graduating from college.

 

     “What are you doing?” Connor raised an eyebrow as I placed my right hand flatly against the tree. The bark was rough on my skin, but I had been climbing trees all summer, so I wasn’t worried about getting scraped. “Is this some kind of ritual you have with yourself?”

 

     “Yeah, it’s something I do on the first day of school to wish myself good luck.” I smiled at Connor, who looked even more confused than before. His eyes were almost filled with worry for me, he seemed be convinced that I had forgotten the day.

 

    “But today isn’t the first day of school. It is not even the beginning of second semester yet.” Connor spoke as if he was trying to be the voice of reason in a world of chaos and discord. “Why do this today of all days? Because I’m here? To show me?”

 

    “I’m doing this because you’re here, you’re right.” I grinned, digging my hand deeper into the bark. I never wanted to forget this day, not if I could help it. “I mean, I’m entering a new era of my life. I have a Squip now, I’m finally just like everyone else. Things are going to be looking up for Evan Hansen.”

 

     “You just referred to yourself in the third person.” Connor said in a dry voice. I could hear the disapproval in his voice, and the very clear ‘I wish I weren’t here right now’ tone, too. “I think I am worried about your mental health, Hansen.”

 

     “Oh, ha ha.” I made a face at Connor, but I knew that I was only making myself look dumb. Maybe Jared was right, that I didn’t have it in me to be rude or to break the law. “At least I don’t shop at Hot Topic, unlike  _ some people _ .”

 

     “I never should have confirmed that theory of yours.” Connor crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. He crossed his legs and glared in the direction of the school. “I guess I only have myself to blame for it, though.”

 

    “You will never be able to live that down, Connor.” I laughed, knowing that I’d only tease him about it when the time was right. I didn’t want to come across as rude or as a bad friend, it was all in good fun. “Not as long as I’m alive. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone at school.”

 

      “Hansen, wait.” Connor looked up at me with fear in his eyes, suddenly realizing something important. “Maybe you shouldn’t go to school today. I mean, we should probably just take some time to relax and I can get to figure out how to be a better Squip in that time. You don’t want to go to school without a good Squip do you?”

 

     “You’ll be fine, Connor.” I replied, almost chuckling at how the anxiety had drifted from me to him. Connor was still nowhere close to calm, and I could see it in his rigid body language. “No one will know it is you. You’ll just be Franta to them, nothing more and nothing less. We’ll both be fine, I promise.”

 

     “Hansen, I really don’t think you should go to school today.” Connor’s voice made me stop walking. It sounded so broken, so afraid. It sounded so much like my own voice after Dad left. “Please don’t go. Let’s just go home, please, Hansen.”

 

     “I’m sorry, Connor, but I have to.” I said, sorrow pooling into my voice. Connor looked more and more defeated at each word I spoke. “My mom can’t think I’m skipping school, otherwise she’ll freak out. She already has enough to worry about, plus that means she’ll figure out about you in the worst possible way. I really have to go to school, Connor.”

 

    “Okay, just forget it.” Connor flickered out of vision in a flash of grey light, and I wanted to protest, but I knew that he wouldn’t come back until he wanted to be seen again. I wished I could speak to him and make things better between us, but Connor didn’t seem to like to speak to people about how he was feeling.

 

      I sighed and traced Connor’s name on my cast, happy that the black Sharpie hadn’t washed off during my shower. Showering had been less awkward than I thought it would be. Connor had just powered off, and I powered him back on when I was clothed again. He didn’t say anything about it, and neither did I. It was a win-win.

 

     My high school came up before me, and I could feel the customary pit in my stomach whenever a high school student sees their high school. The school was large, but that effect was taken away whenever one entered the building, due to the lack of windows and large windows that made buildings look bigger.

 

    There were five different wings that were built in the school, but only four were used by the majority of the staff, so the other part of the school was used for storage. That part of the school was usually poorly lit, so many students would do stupid stuff in that part of the school. To combat that, the school put very expensive cameras in the storage part of the school.

 

     In addition to the five wings, there were two floors to the school. It was designed by the same person who designed the county jail that was also in my Joliet, so there were many jokes about that floating around each year. Joliet High School wasn’t much different from any other high school in the USA, it still had all of the cliques and other things that make a high school a high school.

 

     There weren’t many students walking into school yet, it was still a half hour before the first bell. The busses weren’t here yet, and most of the teachers were still trying to get some rest before coming to school on a Monday morning. A part of me wanted to follow in their footsteps and hang back, too.

 

_ It’s just one foot in front of the other, Evan. _ I thought to myself, urging myself forwards. Finally, I forced myself to move forward, and my body moved toward Joliet High School one foot after the other. I knew that it was inevitable to go into the building, one way or another I would have to go to school today.

 

     I walked the final leg of my journey and I stepped through the front doors of the high school. I realized that I had never been so early to school before. In a moment of panic, I realized I didn’t know what to do, or where to go when I was early. I didn’t want to stay in the commons, the area where most students spent time before school. The only other place that came to mind was the computer lab.

 

    Almost breaking into a run, I quickly walked to the computer lab, the only place where I felt safe in the whole school. I hoped that it was open before school, or else I’d have to hang out in my first hour class, AP Biology. And I really didn’t want my AP Biology teacher and I to be in a alone together, he kinda freaked me out, to be honest. I was happy that I switched teachers second semester.

 

     Making it to the double doors of the computer lab, locate the end of a sparsely traveled hallway, I found that the doors were open. The motion detecting lights flickered on as soon as the door opened, so I wasn’t alone in the dark computer lab. Instead I was alone in a well lit computer lab. I couldn’t tell which one was worse.

 

    I walked over to computer 11, deciding to print out a second copy of the essay for Mr David because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Connor had helped me put the old printer I had at my house together last night. It worked pretty well, so now I had two copies of an essay that I shouldn’t have done in the first place.

 

    I went through the motions of opening up the document on Drive, and printing it out from there. It felt nice to just do the mundane, dumb things by myself, even though I could have had help from a Squip. Technically, Connor had helped me print out the first copy by helping me figure out how to use the printer I had that I thought was broken.

 

    I could hear the sound of the printer slowly shuffling papers and the sound of ink jets quickly slapping words onto the once perfectly blank printer paper. I leaned back in the chair I was sitting in (it was also labeled 11, each Mac had a plastic, wheeled chair that went with it) and I looked up at the ceiling. I tried to count the dots, just like I always do when I get bored and I’m at school.

 

     I was at 267 when I heard footsteps coming towards the computer lab. I was at 272 when the person who had made the sound of the footsteps opened the doors. I had counted up to 278 when they walked into the room, seeing me.

 

     “Mr Hansen?” A female voice said. I took my eyes away from the ceiling, and I saw Mrs Parpart standing in front of me. “What are you doing here so early? Actually, it doesn’t matter, I’m happy to see you. Having a good morning?”

 

      Mrs Parpart’s her hair flowing freely down her back, and she was wearing a simple black shirt and a red and white skirt. She also had on a simple brown jacket. She looked good, and she always had that ‘mom’ look about her, and I knew that she had two sons.

 

    “Yeah, it’s a good morning, Mrs Parpart.” I smiled, happy to see someone who I didn’t have any trouble talking with. Mrs Parpart was just too much like a mom for me to be nervous around her. “How is your morning?”

 

     “Not very good.” Mrs Parpart shed the jacket she was wearing and draped it over the back of her chair. She sighed and sat down, before using her feet to move her wheeled chair over to me so that we could have a real conversation. “I was called down to the office. Something terribly sad happened this weekend.”

 

     “Are your sons okay?” I asked, my eyes getting big. Mrs Parpart loved her sons more than anything in the world, and she would use her vacation days just to take off work to see them. Mrs Parpart sighed and shook her head, and my eyes got a little smaller once I knew that no little kids had gotten hurt.

 

    “No, but something happened to someone else’s son.” Mrs Parpart’s gazed dropped, and she saw my cast. Her face turned from sad to horrified, and I leaned forward in confusion. “Oh, I didn’t know you two were friends! Oh, Evan, I’m so sorry!”

 

    “Mrs Parpart, what are you talking about?” I asked, trying to understand what was going on. It had to do with Connor, that much was true, but what had happened? “What happened? Is Connor okay?”

 

    “Oh, you haven’t heard?” The look of terror on Mrs Parpart’s face only became worse. She ran a hand through her hair, sighing deeply. “Oh, Lord. Evan, Connor Murphy is dead. He killed himself on Friday night.”

 

    “What?” My eyes got wide, and my heart thundered in my chest. It felt like I was breathing water, like someone had thrown me into the deep end of the pool when I didn’t know how to swim. I felt like I was drowning.

 

    I had the ghost of a dead kid in my head.

 

    I knew that Mrs Parpart was trying to speak to me, she was trying to tell me something. But I couldn’t hear her, the water that was filling up my lungs had already filled up my ears, and I couldn’t hear things perfectly anymore. The water was threatening to kill me now, and I could only think of how much I needed to talk to Connor. To tell him how I felt, to make him understand my pain.

 

     “I’m sorry, Mrs Parpart, but I really have to go.” I said, stumbling out of the computer lap and breaking into a run as my feet crossed over into the hallway. The water that was drowning me was blurring my vision, and falling down my face in small, salty drops.

 

    Behind me, I could hear Mrs Parpart call for me to come back, but I needed to get away, to find someplace to be alone. My feet lead me through hallway after hallway, making me feel like I was going in circles as I entered parts of the school I had never seen before.

 

    I finally found a dark classroom that looked like it hadn’t been used in years, and I pushed open the doors and ran to the nearest corner and collapsed into sobs. My body was shaking, and I felt like I was breaking. How was it that Connor was dead and my Squip? Why was it that the universe couldn’t allow me to have just one piece of happiness? Why did everything I touch have to become tainted?

 

     I dug my fingers into my shirt, trying to keep my fingernails away from my skin, where they would no doubt gorge out skin and make it look like I was hurting myself deliberately. Through the tears I was drowning in, I saw my cast. Connor’s name was still written clearly on it, and I felt anger rise in my chest. I wanted nothing more than to rip off the cast and throw it away forever.

 

     “Hansen, I’m so sorry.” Connor’s voice sounded from inside of my head, but I couldn’t find him in the dark room anywhere. I wiped away my tears as best as I could, but they were still streaming down my face. “I really didn’t want this to happen. I wanted to tell you myself, I really did.”

 

    “Then why didn’t you tell me?” I cried, my voice louder than I thought it would be when it came from my mouth. My sobs only became worse, and my body shook more. I was now at the bottom of the lake, and I couldn’t see the sun anymore. “You had chances to tell me, don’t act like you didn’t!”

 

    “I should have told you, but I didn’t, you’re right about that.” Connor conceded, flashing into existence in front of me. He was hovering in the air, like most Squips could. He wasn’t able to do it before, so I was slightly glad that he had learned something new. “But Hansen, it isn’t an easy thing to tell someone, how was I supposed to tell you without having you react this way?”

 

     “You could have told me, let me react this way, and then calmed me down, maybe?” I growled, my voice showing all of the anger and pain I was feeling. Connor looked embarrassed at what he had caused me to become. “You have choices, Connor, you know you did.”

 

     “I didn’t have choices when I finally killed myself, and I still don’t have any choices now.” Connor sounded broken and dejected. My tears were no longer streaming down my face as I slowly got ahold of my runaway emotions. “Look, Hansen, I’m sure that there’s some way to get rid of me if you wanted to. I’ll even help you if you want to. But just drop the idea of my suicide, okay?”

 

    “Okay.” I agreed, trying to eradicate every last indication that I had been crying. I knew that my eyes would still be red for a while, but at least I could wipe away the tears. “I can do that, but I’m not going to get rid of you. You deserve a second chance.”

 

     “Maybe we all deserve a second chance.” Connor said, looking into my eyes. “For both things we did do, and things that we wanted to do and messed up at doing.”

 

     “Yeah, second chances sound good.” I smiled at him, trying to get all of the last remnants of crying off of my face. But I knew exactly what Connor was referencing when he talked about things ‘we’ wanted to do and had messed up at doing.

 

     “I think we could all use a second chance.” Connor nodded.

 

    This was my upgrade from my old life, and I was loving it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My new update style for this story is going to be 'update it whenever I have Internet access and write whenever I have free time' and since I have near unlimited free time, but wifi at only certain times during the week, the updates are going to be all over the place (much like Homestuck, haha). Please bear with me, but I did map out the story and I can confirm that at this point in time, it looks like this story will be 17 chapters long. The number of chapters might still change, but I think that this story can be wrapped up in 17 chapters.  
> Thank you for reading! Have a great day, month and year!


	4. To Break Bad News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After getting over the shock of learning about Connor's suicide, Evan decides to go back to class. However, when he meets up with Zoe in the halls, they make a plan to figure out why Connor is both a dead kid and a Squip. However, when their plans are overheard, things might change forever for Zoe, Connor and Evan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little, tiny note before reading this story: A trans-human is a cyborg, or someone who is less than (or more than, depending on how you look at it) human because of wires and computers in their body or head.  
> I apologize for not uploading in a while, my WiFi has been actin up lately, so I've had to got to the library to upload new chapters to stories.  
> Enjoy!

“You should probably get ready for school soon, Hansen.”

 

    Connor was sitting on my knee, he was only about a foot tall and still in his Franta disguise. He looked at me with a tired, weary look. He knew that I had just cried a lot, and shown more emotion that what I usually show in months. He had pushed me beyond what I thought I could handle.

 

    Yet, here I was, still alive and breathing.

 

    “Do I look okay?” I asked, messing with my hair. I almost wished I had a mirror with me, even though it was super girly. “Do I look like I’ve been crying? Will anyone know, do you think? I hope no one in my class will know.”

 

    “You sound like a generic white girl when you say that, you know that, right?” Connor glared at me, crossing his arms over his chest and crossing his legs. I stuck my tongue out at him, happy to be in the same rhythm with him of him throwing insults and me just being me. “And you look fine, Hansen.”

 

    “Just fine?” I laughed, trying to poke Connor in the chest. He cried out when I moved my finger close to him and I felt an electric shock through my body. “Ouch, what was that for? You didn’t have to shock me!”

 

     “Don’t touch me.” Connor replied, flipping up the collar of his suit. He turned away from me, and he looked like a male model that girls would feign over. But right now he was just Connor Murphy, the dead kid who was also a Squip.

 

    “Okay, message received.” I pouted, rubbing my hands on my upper arms. I tried to get up slowly without knocking Connor from his perch, but he jumped down from my knee at the slightest movement in my body. “I guess I should go to class now.”

 

     “Sounds like a good idea.” Connor snapped his fingers and was sitting on top of my shoulder again. For some reason Squips would almost always spend time sitting on shoulders or hovering around their user’s heads. “I mean, you have about ten minutes before you’re late for class.”

 

    “What?” I cried, forcefully grabbing my backpack from the floor. I wanted to freak out more, but today had already been such an emotional rollercoaster, I felt drained and sleepy. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I have no idea what part of the school I’m in, and I have to get to my class in  _ ten minutes _ ?”

 

     “Yes, that is your situation, pay attention.” Connor spoke while he inspected his nails, studying them like a historian studies a historical map or text. “You’re most likely going to be screwed, but no one can fault you for trying. So get running, Hansen.”

 

    “You’re an apathetic jerk.” I growled, having second thoughts about forgiving Connor for not telling me about his suicide. I swore I heard Connor chuckle at my words, but it might have just been the sound of me opening up the door to the room that I had just had a breakdown in.

 

    I stared out into the dark hallway, worrying that someone was looking at the cameras and was looking at me, judging me, in live time. I swallowed my fears and began to retrace my steps, running down the same way that I had came. I was impressed that I had remembered the route so well, and I realized that I had found a new place to go when life got crazy.

 

     I could see a better lit part of the school coming up, and I ran up the nearest flight of stairs, trying to get to my locker on the second floor. Before I could get to the end of the staircase and to my locker, a body was thrown in front of the stairs before I had any time to respond.

 

    Noticing the human too late, I nearly barreled them over. My chest slammed into someone else’s, and my feet stopped running. My feet tangled with the other person’s, and I balled my hands into fists to break my fall. I blinked and quickly looked at who I had run into, only to see, of all people, Zoe Murphy standing in front of me.

 

     Zoe looked like she always did, amazing. Her hair was in a braid, which was unlike her, usually it was falling in straight locks down her back. She had on a grey hoodie and jeans, with black flats. She probably had on a band t shirt under the hoodie, she really liked little-known indie groups and would wear band merchandise almost all of the time.

 

     “Do you always run over girls who want to talk to you, Evan?” Zoe smirked, cocking her head to the side. I could detect a hint of sarcasm in her tone, but I ignored it. Zoe Murphy was  _ talking to me. _ She  _ wanted _ to talk to me. “I’ve been looking for you, Rose was helping me.”

 

    “Hello, there!” An overly cheery Squip appeared on Zoe’s shoulder, right under her jade earring. She was skinny and short, with a pink glow surrounding her. A large rose was on her shirt, and she had on skinny jeans and a small black jacket covering her arms.

 

     “Um, h-hi, Zoe.” I said, dumbstruck by the fact that Zoe not only wanted to  _ talk to me _ , but that she had been  _ looking for me _ . I was on cloud nine, the emotional rollercoaster was only getting better. “I don’t usually run over girls. Or guys. Or anyone, especially not animals. Not even ugly ones. But there are no ugly animals, what did you want to see me about?”

 

     “Real smooth, Hansen, real smooth.” Connor said from my shoulder, looking up at Zoe. She looked at him like he was some alien species, she had never seen me with a Squip. “Hello, Zoe. My name is Franta, I’m Evan’s Squip.”

 

    “Hello, Franta.” Zoe fixed her gaze on him for a few seconds before her eyes flitted back to me, boring holes into my head. “Evan, I heard you knew Connor. And his name is on your arm. We need to talk.”

 

     Before I could reply, Zoe dragged me away by my cast. She pulled me down the stairs, and I scrambled to keep up and not trip over my own feet. I had never been so coordinated before, and I was proud of myself. Connor was whispering profanities into my ear, telling me to run away from Zoe and get to class before I was late and got the bad kind of attention pegged to me.

 

    Zoe didn’t relent on her journey to take me to wherever she was taking me, and we were soon off of the staircase. There were a few students in the hall that she was taking me down, and she dodged them expertly. She moved through the halls like an eel, avoiding obstacles gracefully and without breaking a sweat.

 

    Shoving me into an open classroom, Zoe closed the door behind us. I looked around the empty classroom that I was standing with Zoe and our Squips in, appraising the room quickly. I saw that it was an old history classroom, with maps and diagrams plastered all over the walls. The maps looked old and faded, as if they were decades old, but the desks were still lined up in perfect rows in the room.

 

     “What did you know about Connor, Evan?” Zoe asked, getting right into the heart of what she wanted to know. She was sitting on top of a desk, glaring at me from a few feet away. “I can see that you two at least knew each other. But how well did you know him?”

 

      “Tell her what she wants to hear.” Connor whispered into my ear so that Zoe couldn’t see he was feeding me information. “Tell her we weren’t very close, and tell her the truth. She’ll get over it, rant about me, and this whole episode will be over in a few seconds.”

 

    “I didn’t know Connor very well.” I said, saying just what Connor had told me to say to Zoe to appease her. But I didn’t know if what I was saying was helping or harming, her face was stoic and she didn’t even indicate she had heard me. “We would sometimes see each other in the computer lab, though. That’s where he signed my cast.”

 

     “Did he sign it on Friday, by any chance?” Zoe’s voice rose, and it was like she was baiting me for the answer she was looking for. Rose leaned towards me, too. It made me feel like I was being interrogated, like I had done something wrong.

 

     “Yeah, he did sign it on Friday.” I traced my fingers over Connor’s name again and again, it helped to calm me down. Everything about this situation was either freaking me out, or just plain wrong. Zoe should be mourning, right? “Why are you here right now, Zoe? Your brother is dead, shouldn’t you be at home, recovering?”

 

    “Recovering?” Zoe laughed bitterly, the sound of it was almost sinister. “Why would I recover from something I was never broken up about in the first place? Why should I break in pieces for Connor Murphy of all people?”

 

     “Because he was your brother, and you loved him.” I stated, leaning towards Zoe and sitting down in a desk that was behind me. I slipped into a sitting position in the desk and faced Zoe, liking the fact that we were now at eye level with each other. “You two were close, right?”

 

     “What gave you the idea that we were close?” Zoe’s voice was covered in venom, she seemed livid at the very idea that her and Connor had ever cared for each other. “My parents? The fact that we were the ‘perfect family’? Did you know he had a drug problem?”

 

     “I didn’t know, no.” I felt betrayed again, and I cast my gaze over to Connor. He was now sitting on the desk next to the desk I was sitting at, and he shifted when he saw the betrayed look I was giving him. “He never told me, it just never came up.”

 

     “Well, it came up in the police report that he was high when he killed himself.” Zoe sounded angry almost, like she was mad at Connor for killing himself, even though she never seemed to care for him. “They found pot where he died, Evan. Did you know that?”

 

     “Zoe, you need to calm down.” Rose said in a small voice, barely speaking above a whisper. She placed a small hand on Zoe’s shoulder, trying to center the teenager. It was to no avail, and Zoe brushed Rose off of her shoulder. The Squip fell onto the table and looked up at Zoe with a worried expression.

 

     “Did you know that he was verbally abusive, Evan?” Zoe demanded, her anger and pain soaking into her voice. “Did you know that he never made any real friends? Did you know that he tried killing himself once before? Did you know that he has inches of scars on his wrists? Did you know that he was the a part of the most perfect family in all of Joliet?”

 

    "Zoe, stop it!” Rose cried, her voice taking up the whole room. Zoe glared at her and pushed Rose off of her shoulder. The Squip looked up at Zoe with a concerned look one more time before she disappeared when Zoe turned her off.

 

     “Tell, me, Evan, did you know any of those things?” Zoe got up from the desk she was sitting on, and stalked over to me. “Did you know how terrible of a person Connor was? Did you even think about how much control Connor must have needed to think he had to kill himself?”

 

    “Stop it!” I yelled, jumping out of the desk and nearly hitching my foot on the leg of the desk and falling flat on my face. “Stop saying such horrible things! He was your brother, and he’s dead! How could you say those horrible things about him?”

 

     “Because they’re true, each and everyone one of them.” Connor admitted, turning to face Zoe. Connor snapped his fingers and he stood, his normal size, in his favorite outfit - black combat boots, a dark grey t-shirt and black jeans - in front of Zoe. He finally pulled the tie out of his hair and threw his hands out at his sides, as if saying ‘I’m here’.

 

     “Connor?” Zoe breathed, and I held my breath in anticipation of some kind of apology. “How is this possible?”

 

     “Connor is my Squip.” I smiled from behind Connor. Neither Connor or Zoe turned around to say anything to me, and I could almost feel them collectively wishing I wasn’t standing in the room with them. “We don’t know how, but it just happened on Friday night.”

 

    “What the Hell is going on?” Zoe whispered, looking at Connor with an emotion acute to rage. Her eyes almost glowed with discontent and her teeth were gritted together. “I finally lost you, everything had the opportunity to go back to normal, then you show up again. Hell, Connor, why?”

 

     “Zoe, I’m-” Connor tried to say, but was cut off by a shouting Zoe.

 

     “Don’t you  _ dare _ say you’re sorry when you’re clearly not!” Zoe took a step towards Connor, while Connor grew to full size in front of her. Zoe pointed a finger at his chest, but the height difference was now back, and she looked younger and smaller than him again. “You  _ never _ were sorry! You did what you wanted, without any regard for anyone else!”

 

      “I know I was selfish.” Connor almost hung his head, his hands balling into fists at his sides. His breathing, a silly human habit, had come back in ragged breaths. “But I’m here to ask you to forget all of that and help Evan and I. Please, Zoe.”

 

    “Why should I help you?” Zoe asked in a low and vicious voice, taking another step towards Connor. Even though Connor was taller than her, she was trying to intimidate him. “You’ve done nothing for me, not once! Not even when we were kids, you were always the kid Mom and Dad wanted, and I was always just their backup plan!”

 

     “How is that my fault, Zoe?” Connor asked, barely keeping his temper in check. I wanted to run over to Connor and calm him down, but I figured that siblings were probably prone to screaming matches and this was just a normal occurrence for Zoe and Connor. “Do you want me to apologize for being born first?”

 

    “No, I don’t want any of your apologies!” Zoe screamed, sweeping her hand down in a motion to suggest her words were true. I would have never believed Zoe would ever get this angry, but it seemed like pent up rage to me. “I don’t want anything from you, and I don’t want to do anything for you, either. Not until you understand what you’ve done to our family!”

 

     “What  _ I _ did?” Connor smiled, rage tainting the gesture and making it look twisted. He flattened one hand to his chest, taking a step towards Zoe. They were only a few inches apart now, and I feared they might come to blows, though I wasn’t sure Zoe had it in her. “What about what  _ he _ did? Did you ever consider that?”

 

     “You mean last time you attempted and he didn’t care?” Zoe scoffed, raising an eyebrow. Her whole body just screamed that she was about ready to slap her brother across the face. “How is what you did again your fault? How is it his fault that you killed yourself finally?”

 

     “It isn’t just his fault!” Connor lashed out, almost to the point of pushing his sister. I was frozen in place by fear, helpless and useless again.  Zoe could see him almost lose it, and took a tentative step back without thinking. “It’s everyone’s fault! It wasn’t like I had a healthy relationship with my family, in case you didn’t notice, Zoe!”

 

     “You haven’t changed at all, have you?” Zoe’s voice had a bite to it, and was dripping with venom. She turned away from him, hugging herself. “Evan, please tell me why you think I can help you with this problem.”

 

    Connor, scoffing, turned away from Zoe and went from his old human size back to a normal Squip size. Connor teleported back to my shoulder, his hair obscuring his face and stopping me from seeing his emotions. I walked over to Zoe, wanting to put a hand on her shoulder and tell her that I’m here for her.

 

     “I don’t really know what we’re going to accomplish, or how or why.” I admitted, standing behind Zoe as she face away from me. I was afraid to face her, I didn’t want her to get more upset by seeing Connor again. “But I think that we should just start with getting some answers.”

 

     “Yeah, answers seem to fix most problems.” Zoe turned around and glared at Connor, and I couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably on my feet when I saw Zoe’s glare. “But how am I supposed to help, where are we supposed to look?”

 

     “I would say documentation of Connor’s birth would be the first thing.” I suggested, trying to think back to different TV shows and movies I had seen and what those characters did to get answers. “Then maybe some documentation of other major things about Connor’s childhood, or anything weird that might have happened in his life.”

 

     “You’re just quoting from movies, aren’t you?” Zoe gave me the ghost of a smile, almost looking like she needed to smile to get away from the heated argument she had just had. “I think I can get the birth records and records of Connor’s early childhood, too. But I think we’ll also need some help in case these files are encrypted. My dad keeps all of the family files, and he likes to keep things encrypted.”

 

     “Who were you thinking of to help us?” I asked, playing with my cast again. I couldn’t think of anyone who we could trust who would be able to help us. Yeah, there were lots of students in our high school who could decrypt messages and documents. But most of them were shady people, not the kind of people who you would share a secret with.

 

    “How about Alana Beck?” Zoe shrugged, looking me in the eyes. I thought about what I knew about Alana. She was a good student, and one of the few trans-humans in the city, the only one who went to school with Zoe and I. “She’s nice and trustworthy. Not to mention smart.”

 

     “And trans-human.” I added, feeling almost proud that I knew that about her. Zoe thought about it for a second, her mind almost fully made up about recruiting Alana to our cause. “That means she’ll probably be better than most people at decryptions and understanding computer jargon.”

 

     “I think she’ll be a good person to ask for help.” Zoe agreed, nodding once. She pulled out a cell phone, a rare way for someone to contact another person in the age of Squips. “I know she doesn’t like being contacted via Squip, so I’ll text and see what I get back from her answer-wise.”

 

     “Why doesn’t she like to be contacted via Squip?” I asked, walking back over to the desk I had been sitting in before. I let myself get comfortable, and I looked at Connor again. I was worried about him and how he was holding up. “Wouldn’t a trans-human use their Squip for everything?”

 

    “You’d think she would, but she doesn’t.” Zoe shrugged, sending the text without a second thought about Alana’s preferences for communications. “I don’t really care what she wants to do or what she is more comfortable with, she can do what she wants to.”

 

     Silence fell over the room as Zoe fiddled with her phone and I sat without moving. I wasn’t even fidgeting with anything, I was just soaking in the ability to be near Zoe without her looking at me strange. She was so perfect, and I smiled as a strand of hair fell from behind her ear into her face. She was just so amazing, it was hard to believe I was in the same room as she was.

 

     She seemed almost at home in the old history room. The dimmed lighting made the clothes she was wearing sink into an almost sepia tone, and her hair almost glowed with color. Her stance was one of perfect posture, her back arched and her shoulders squared. I once again remembered why I had fallen so hard for her.

 

    The way Zoe looked was so different from how Connor looked right now. I looked down at him, his hair obscuring his face and making his emotions unreadable for both Zoe and I. His nails were dug into his legs, and I worried that he was hurting himself. Without a hoodie or other long sleeved shirt on, I swore I could see the faintest marks of self harm on his wrists. I knew his life was much worse than what I had once thought.

 

     I also knew that Connor was still trying to deal with what Zoe had said to him, and I knew that he couldn’t be dealing well. I looked back over to Zoe, who was now smiling gently at her phone’s screen, her actions were so different from Connor’s. Connor didn’t wear his emotions outright, but he wasn’t making any smart comments or asking me any questions as to why I was staring at his little sister. I tore my eyes away from Zoe to look at Connor, who still hadn’t bothered to push his hair out of his face.

 

     Smiling dully, I wondered if having hair in their faces was just something the Murphy kids usually did. I wanted to brush the hair out of Zoe’s face and tell her everything was going to be okay, that nothing was going to hurt her, that Connor didn’t mean what he said. And, for some reason, I felt the urge to that same thing with Connor.

 

    Suddenly, the realization why hit me: I finally had a real friend who I wanted to take care of and console.

 

     I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Here I was, sitting with my Squip - who was also a dead kid who was also my friend - and  _ Zoe Murphy _ at the same time. I felt like I was dreaming, like this amazing good fortune I had been given was just a vision my brain had come up with while I was laying, sleeping, in my bed at night.

 

     “Hello.” I heard someone, a voice that sounded familiar call, from the hall. Zoe stiffened, sliding her phone into her pocket and stalking over to the door in a defensive body position. She flattened her back against the wall, and peeked out of the small window on the door before letting anger fill her body again.

 

     “Jared Klieman.” Zoe sneered and threw open the door. Jared, who had been leaning up against the door, stumbled and fell into the room. He landed on his face, his hands barely breaking his fall enough to make any real difference. “What brings you here?”

 

     “Oh, only you Zoe. Tell me, are you still single? Because my offer still stands.” Jared grinned up at Zoe, and Zoe walked away without a second thought. I was worried for a second she might lash out and defend herself, the Murphy siblings always knew how to dish out justice. Jared looked up and locked eyes with me. “Or did I just interrupt you and Evan Hansen hooking up?”

 

     “Jared, why are you here?” Zoe growled, still standing. She didn’t look over at me, or else she would have seen the blush that was violently heating up my face. Connor had looked up, pushing his hair out of his face, trying to see what Jared wanted this time. “You usually have a reason for being anywhere that you are. One better than just being able to watch something you could never do yourself.”

 

    I almost choked out some kind of sentence that would tell Jared that nothing had happened between Zoe and I, but I feared that I wouldn’t be able to make a coherent sentence and that I would only stutter and make things worse. Connor looked at me for a second, then focussed back on Jared.

 

     “Well, Zoe, I heard you discussing something about Connor Murphy.” Jared spoke nonchalantly, though everyone in the room knew he was working at an angle. “And, worried about your mental health, I wanted to make sure that you’re coping with the death of your brother.”

 

     “I’m doing fine, thanks for checking.” Zoe’s words had a bite to them, telling Jared that she was done with the conversation. She tapped her foot sharply against the carpeted floor, her black flats making a dull noise at they hit the floor again and again. “Now, why don’t you get back to class, you sneaky little rat?”

 

     “Well, I’m just worried that you might break and enter into someplace you don’t belong, Miss Murphy.” Jared chuckled and looked at Zoe over the top of his glasses. Zoe almost gaped, now worried that he knew about the whole plan and would rat them out. “You might be right about me being a rat, but at least I’m not going to steal documents from my own family to prove the unprovable.”

 

      “And what exactly am I trying to prove, Jared?” Zoe took a step towards Jared, her stance showing just how angry and ready for a fight she was. Jared shied away a bit, but the hesitation was so minimal it was almost impossible for the untrained eye to catch it. “Please tell me, for I fear I may have forgotten my plans.”

 

    “You are going to prove that Connor Murphy, your brother, is Evan Hansen’s Squip.” Jared spoke without a single flaw or pause. He seemed pleased with himself, while Zoe and Connor looked miffed. I was quickly freaking out, running through possible outcomes again and again in my head.

 

     Currently the worst one I could think of was that I would be thrown out of school for murder, never go to college, and Zoe would hate me and want to make me pay so I’d have to work for her and have to see her with someone else for the rest of my life. But, as long as she was happy, I didn’t think it could be too bad to not be with her.

 

    “What can I do to make you keep quiet?” Zoe asked, narrowing her eyes and leaning towards Jared. She was getting right down to the question we all knew she was going to ask. “What is it going to take? Money? That won’t be a problem.”

 

     “I want three hundred dollars.” Jared said, a small smile flashing across his face. “In cash. I want it in my hand by the end of eighth period on Friday.”

 

     “Done.” Zoe replied, seemingly unphased by the sum of money. I knew that her family was well to do, but they were so well to do that Zoe could just throw three hundred dollars at Jared Kleinman, a teenager who almost never kept his word. “You’ll have it by the beginning of the day on Friday.”

 

     “The sooner the better, darling.” Jared looked down at his fingernails, pretending to not care about what Zoe was saying. As if he had just realized something, his head snapped up and his eyes focussed on Zoe. “I also want in on this little operation to find out stuff about Connor.”

 

     “No.” Connor said from my shoulder, he was glaring daggers at Jared. Connor had never liked Jared, they seemed to be natural enemies of each other. “You’re not coming along. I don’t trust you, Kleinman. There’s no way you’re coming with us.”

 

     “Connor.” Zoe growled, turning to him. Her glare was enough to kill someone, but Connor stood his ground, he wasn’t afraid of death since he had already died. “If Jared wants to come, I say let him come.”

 

      “Yeah, Zoe’s right.” Jared waved his hand passively again. “Let me come along and have some fun. I promise I won’t do anything stupid, Connor. Or should I say Franta?”

 

      “You know what to call me.” Connor glared at Jared. Connor’s anger seethed, and I hoped that he would be able to get rid of the terrible emotion in a good way. “And you only seem to do stupid things, so why should I trust that you won’t do something stupid on the day I finally get some much needed answers just to spite me?”

 

     “Connor!” Zoe cried, scolding her older brother before turning to Jared. Jared made a ‘speak’ gesture at Zoe, and Zoe sighed deeply. “Jared, you can come with us. However, understand that if you tell anyone about our plans, or about what we find, we will make life very, very hard for you. Understood?”

 

      “I understand fully, Miss Murphy.” Jared smiled, then turned back to me. “I look forward to seeing both you and Connor, Evan. And Alana, that girl is pretty cute too.”

 

     Jared gave us all one last smile before turning around and walking out of the door. When he was finally gone, it was like someone had just taken the tension out of the air. I relaxed my shoulders and I looked at Zoe, then Connor, to see how they were doing.

 

      “This is going to be a massive disaster.” Zoe groaned, checking her phone for texts and looking over at me. “I’m sorry you’re involved with this, Evan. You’re a good kid, but not you’re stuck with breaking and entering and other crimes.”

 

      “W-Wait, is it really breaking and entering if it is your own house?” I asked, my voice quick. I was going to be committing a crime? What would my mom think if she found out? What if someone called the police? What would happen to me? “I mean, we are breaking into your house, r-right?”

 

     “Yeah, we’re going to be entering my house.” Zoe nodded, closing her eyes. “However, my dad doesn’t usually let me have people over, so he’ll try and get me for that. Believe me, my father is no one to conspire against, for any reason.”

 

     “We’re not conspiring against him, Zoe.” I said, smiling slightly. It was true, no one had been suspected of any wrongdoing, and there was no evidence to even get to the point of even speculation of law breaking or being immoral. “We’re just looking for some answers. And it just so happens that your father is the one with the keys to the answers.”

 

    “You know, Evan,” Zoe said, looking me in the eyes, “Sometimes your innocence is toxic.”

 

    Then she turned away from me, and walked out of the door without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to anyone who has read and left comments and kudos on this story, it really means the world to me! This story has been amazingly fun to write, and I love all of the love that it has been getting! Thank you so much for reading!  
> Have a great day!


	5. Sincerely, Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan, after telling his mom he has a Squip (but conveniently leaving out the part that his Squip is Connor Murphy), goes to his therapist to talk about the latest letter than he wrote to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, this chapter took me a day to write, and it is the longest so far in the story. I must admit that this story at certain parts just writes itself. At other intervals I have to turn up Michael in the Bathroom so loud I get permanent hearing loss and power through the boring parts.  
> But my favorite thing to write is the dialogue between Connor and Evan, it just flows so perfectly. So, for fans of seeing Connor and Evan talking together, this story is kind of perfect for you. (I will forever love the tree boy and the edgy teenage ghost.)  
> Enjoy!

“I don’t think I’m ever going to leave my room until the end of time.”

 

    Connor almost chuckled at my words, and I felt kind of accomplished to get him to almost laugh. Connor was sitting on my knee, which were propped up as I laid on my back on my bed. My hands were laced together and my head was resting on them as I tried to shake off the day and relax.

 

     “Well, at least you were able to get the better of Mr David.” Connor pointed out, pulling his knees close to his chest again. His hair was back in a ponytail, and it looked somewhat natural for him to have his hair that way. “I mean, your essay wasn’t terrible. So, he might grade it and give you a good grade. That’s a plus.”

 

     “Yeah, you’re right about my essay.” I sighed happily, remembering the look on Mr David’s face when I walked into class with not only an essay, but a Squip. Connor had been back in his Franta disguise, and Mr David’s jaw had dropped when he saw everything. “It was awesome. But seeing Mr David’s reaction to me having the essay was even better.”

 

     “But the rest of the day was kind of terrible.” Connor groaned, mimicking my body language exactly. He laid out on his back on my knee, looking up at the ceiling. “I mean, I wish I could have seen Zoe under better terms. And Mrs Parpart seemed to be kind of freaked out at how you were doing. Not only that, but  _ Jared _ showed up.”

 

     “Jared isn’t that bad, Connor.” I looked at Connor, and he scoffed at my statement. I rolled my eyes at him, Connor could just be impossible to deal with sometimes. “He’s just misunderstood. He seems like he has a lot going on.”

 

     “Don’t take his side.” Connor turned to me and pointed a finger at my chest. His eyes showed how serious he was, and his voice reinforced it. “I don’t trust and I will never trust him. And you shouldn’t trust him either, Hansen.”

 

    “I just think that everyone should get a chance to be trusted.” I asserted, and Connor rolled his eyes at me. “I don’t see the harm in that, really. I want to give him a chance to at least do something wrong before I assume he’s a bad guy.”

 

    “You’re too nice and trusting, Hansen.” Connor said, looking back up at the ceiling. My ceiling was a pure white, unlike the blue walls. My blue curtains were once again fluttering in the light wind, but my bedroom looked as perfect as I had left it this morning. “One day you’re going to get burned for being like that.”

 

    “I still think everyone deserves a chance.” I stated one last time. I thought about the homework I was doing, and that I had no intention of ever doing. It was funny, since I now had a person to talk to, homework was something I never wanted to ever do again. “Also, I think today is my therapist appointment, so I hope you’re prepared for this.”

 

     “How bad can it be?” Connor asked, propping one of his legs up on the other as he still laid on his back. I grimaced slightly, worried about showing Connor the more damaged parts of my psyche that no one else, other than my therapist, Dr North, got to see. “I mean, it’s just talking about your feelings. It’ll be a good time for me to sleep.”

 

    “Do Squips even sleep?” I cocked my head to the side, pulling myself up into a sitting position. Connor fell from my knee and glared at me as he landed on my bed. “Sorry about that. But, really, Squips don’t sleep, right? I mean, you’re just computer programs. You’re not real people.”

 

     “First of all,” Connor hopped back into my knee again and looked me straight in the eye, “I was a human, once upon a time. Secondly, I’m still figuring out how to be a Squip. Lastly, don’t call me a fake person. I have emotions and dreams, too, Hansen.”

 

     “Sorry.” I apologized, shying away from Connor. I realized that I hadn’t ever really thought about Squips being people before, because until now the issue hadn’t really been something I was dealing with on my own. “I’ve just never thought of Squips as people, maybe because I’ve never had one before.”

 

     “Just remember that I was a human before, and I’m not going to lose the title of human.” Connor replied, closing his eyes and laying on his back on my knee again. “And I feel like I should sleep, but I can’t tell if it is a human thing, or if Squips really sleep. Maybe I have a glitch, or a bug? I think a Google search is in order.”

 

     “Sounds good.” I said, reaching down to get my laptop. This time Connor jumped off my knee before I threw him off, and he seemed pleased with himself for remembering to jump off. I pulled my laptop up into my lap, and I opened up Chrome. “What do I Google?”

 

     “Do Squips need sleep.” Connor prompted me, and I moved my fingers across the keyboard as fast as I could, hitting ‘Enter’ at the end of the phrase. Connor was sitting on my shoulder, he had teleported up there as soon as he felt me moving.

 

     The screen changed from the normal Google home screen to the results screen. The top of the screen bragged that it had only taken it .3 seconds to bring up over one million results. I ignored the majority of the results (who even needs over a million websites and webpages to answer such a simple question?) and just clicked on the first link, from SquipTech.

 

    The page I was sent to was very nicely designed, with a plain cream background and a light blue header at the top of the page. The text was a dark grey, and it all was put on a simple to navigate sitemap. The article I was looking at was short, and it seemed to be simply worded. Since people of all ages had Squips, articles about them had to be easy to read.

 

     “‘Squips do not need sleep,’” I read aloud, hoping that Connor would be okay with the ability to transport back to Kindergarden when people read things aloud, “‘They do, however, need to be able to shut off for at least two hours a week to run updates and sync with other Squips.’”

 

    “So, two hours a week?” Connor questioned, trying the words out on his tongue. He looked at me, giving me a confused look. “That is an awkward number, wouldn’t you say? I mean two hours a week? Why not just update once a month?”

 

     “I don’t know, I don’t work for SquipTech. But two hours doesn’t seem too awkward, it is an official thing on the official website.” I kept looking at the website, not sure if Connor was listening to me or not. “Do you know how to run these updates? Is there some kind of special button you press inside my head or something?”

 

     “If there was a button, don’t you think I would have pressed it by now?” Connor rebutted, his words acidic. He stretched out his body, laying on his stomach on my shoulder as he moved his muscles. “I have no idea how to be a proper Squip, I mean I wasn’t coded like a normal Squip. Or, at least I don’t think I was. I was human once.”

 

     “There’s a support hotline for people who are having troubles with a Squip.” I tried, hoping that Connor would find some solace in the fact that SquipTech understood that sometimes Squips didn’t work perfectly. “Do you want me to talk to them? I’m sure they could help with telling you how to download the updates that you need to get.”

 

    Connor took one look at the website and then looked at me. He looked at me like he expected more, like I had let him down. I felt terrible when he looked at me like that, and I felt like I needed to undo the actions that had caused him to look at me like that. But, since I didn’t understand what action of mine had warranted such a look, I had to wait for him to explain it to me.

 

     “Do you really think that calling SquipTech with an unlicensed Squip who doesn’t know how to be a Squip is the best idea, Hansen?” Connor asked, pursing his lips and sitting up straight. “What are you thinking? We don’t know why I am the way I am, and you want to call the company that makes Squips for some answers that are only going to make things worse? Where is the logic?”

 

     “I didn’t think of that.” I said, hanging my head for not thinking about the consequences about calling SquipTech to ask about glitches and how to get Squips to work. “I’m sorry, Connor, I would never do anything to hurt you. You know that, right?”

 

     “I know that, yeah.” Connor turned away from me, and I smiled lightly. Connor Murphy was one of the people in this world who couldn’t deal with getting or showing affection. Maybe it was good that he was stuck with me, we both had some lessons to learn from each other.

 

     “Evan, honey, are you in there?” I heard a knock at my door, and I recognized my mom’s voice through my wooden bedroom door. Her voice sounded concerned, she must be scared to hear me talking to someone when she knew that I didn’t call my ‘friends’.

 

     “Yeah, Mom.” I called through the door. I looked at Connor, but he had already turned into Franta without me having to say anything. His suit looked perfect, and everything about him looked clean cut. “You can come in, I have something I wanted to talk to you about.”

 

     “Oh?” Mom’s voice was almost high, she didn’t usually openly get news from me about anything to do with my life. She was just gone so much that it made our relationship strained, even her Squip was usually over taxed and unavailable during most of the day for messages. 

 

      My mom stepped into my room, and she looked me. I closed my laptop, and I smiled up at her. The first thing she picked out was the little scrap of grey light hovering above my shoulder. Her eyes got big and the ghost of a smile crept across her face.

 

    My mom’s hair was long and blonde, and flowing freely down her back. She was wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans, with a lilac hoodie. Her Squip, Annie, was dressed almost exactly as Mom, except Annie had on her glasses and boots, while Mom was barefoot and walking around the house in socks.

 

     “Hey, Mom.” I said, smiling. Mom walked over to my bed and sat down, her eyes still focussed on the Squip in the room that was mine. Mom’s Squip, a women who had the same build and age as mom, was also astonished that I had a Squip. “This is my Squip, Franta.”

 

      “Squip?” Mom asked, her voice shaking. She looked at me, pride and happiness in her eyes. “Oh, Evan, you got a Squip! Oh, honey, come here!”

 

    Mom wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around her, too, and she ran her hands over my back. I wasn’t sure if she was going to start crying, my mom could be a little over dramatic sometimes. I tried mimicking her movement to try to console her, but she didn’t need consoling, thankfully.

 

     “How is this possible?” Mom pulled away from me and held my shoulders in her hands, keeping me at no more and no less than an arm’s length away from her. “I thought you couldn’t have a Squip. We learned that when you were little.”

 

     “I still don’t fully understand it, to be honest.” I rubbed the back of my neck, not wanting to meet my mom’s eyes. I hated lying to her about things she cared so much about, and she clearly and openly cared about my Squip. But I couldn’t tell her my Squip was Connor Murphy. “Franta doesn’t really understand it, either, but he does know that he’s been dormant for a while.”

 

    “It must have just started working randomly when you got older.” My mom exclaimed, her face showing all of the joy she was feeling in her heart for me right now. “Oh, honey, this is huge! We have got to tell Dr North and Dr O’Neil!”

 

     “I don’t think we should bother Dr O’Neil with this, Mom.” I quickly said, waving my hands in a way that showed my mom I really didn’t want to go to Dr O’Neil. My mom gave me a strange look, she didn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to tell my Squip doctor I had a Squip. “I mean, I’m sure he has lots of other people he should be working with. I’m just Evan Hansen.”

 

     “There’s no ‘just’ about you, Evan.” Mom hugged me close again, because she didn’t know what else to do. For the most part, my mom had never really had to deal with bad self image or bad self talk. Then my dad left and her whole life changed. “If you don’t want to go see Dr O’Neil, I’ll respect that. But you can’t stop seeing Dr North.”

 

      “I really like going to see Dr North, Mom.” I smiled, telling the truth. Dr North was one of the few people I felt like I could really talk to. He was young, only about thirty, yet he knew so much about life. “I’m not going to stop seeing him. I printed out the letter you told me to print out when I go to see him.”

 

     “Oh, honey, that’s wonderful!” Mom hugged me again, pulling me close to her for the third time in under five minutes. She looked so joyous to see me happy, and I felt almost guilty because I couldn’t reciprocate when she did something awesome. “I”m so happy! When did you get your Squip?”

 

    “I got him on Friday night.” I smiled, trying to look as happy as Mom was. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t care that she was here, talking with me. But I was so afraid to say something wrong. “I just woke up to pain and then there Franta was, just floating around.”

 

     “I’m so glad you’re here!” Mom turned to Connor, giving him the loving look that she would have given to friends that I would have brought home if I had friends to bring home. “Oh, you seem like the perfect match for my Evan!”

 

     “Thank you, Mrs Hansen.” Connor said, giving my mom a small smile. He seemed to be unaware of what to do, almost like he wasn’t used to getting looks of love from people. “I really like - love - being here with Evan.”

 

     “Oh, just call me Heidi.” My mom smiled, and I was so glad that she didn’t pick up on Connor saying ‘Mrs’ and not ‘miss’. That would have made Mom’s mood go from happy to sad faster than anything else possibly could. “I’m so happy to meet you, I’m sorry I couldn’t see you sooner. And this is my Squip, Annie.”

 

    “Hello.” Annie said from Mom’s arm, she one of the few Squips that I had seen that didn’t like being on her person’s shoulders. She preferred to be nears Mom’s legs and elbows, it was just what she liked. “It’s really great to meet you, Franta. I really hope that we’ll get to know each other better.”

 

    I knew that Annie was being sincere, but Connor seemed to be wondering about it. I knew that my mom was more upbeat and happy than most people when it came to what she had to do, and was more flexible than most people, too, because of how much she was doing. She loved me endlessly, but it seemed to only serve to stress Connor out more than anything.

 

     “Thank you, Annie.” I said, answering in Connor’s place. I wasn’t sure if he would be able to answer in the best way, anyways. Connor just nodded from my shoulder, he didn’t know how to respond to the gushing happiness. “So, Mom, when are we going to see Dr North?”

 

    “Oh, I almost forgot about that appointment tonight!” Mom exclaimed, jumping up from my bed and pacing in place for a second. “Look, you need to get your letter right now and we need to run there if we want to get to Dr North before we’re late. And we can’t be late.”

 

    Without another word, Mom ran out of my room and to the kitchen to get her keys. Annie gave us a quick wave goodbye, and then teleported away from Connor and I. I looked to Connor, seeing that he almost dazed. I poked him, snapping him out of his trance.

 

     “What’s wrong, Connor?” I asked, worry clear on my face. Connor looked me in the eyes, pulling at his fingers on his left hand with his right hand’s fingers. “You kind of blanked out there. Is there something wrong?”

 

     “No, it’s just kind of weird to see how much your mom loves you, I guess.” Connor spoke quickly, as if he were trying to play damage control before the damage had even been done. “I mean, you’re mom is really nice and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just thought that most teenagers and their parents didn’t really get along. You two seem close.”

 

     “My mom works a lot, so we always try to make time with each other whenever we can.” I shrugged, trifling through my backpack for my letter to myself that I had written. I had forgotten what it was about, so much had happened that I had forgotten the content of the letter I had written myself. “She loves me no matter what, but that can be kind of stressful. She loves me even when I fail, but I try not to fail for her.”

 

     “What you two have is really nice, Hansen.” Connor looked away from me. I wasn’t sure what to do, he was clearly going through something. Without looking at the letter I had written, I shoved it into my pocket. 

 

     “Connor, if something’s wrong, please tell me.” I smiled at him, but he didn’t turn to face me. Instead he just logged off, and I was left without a Squip as I walked out of my room and arrived in the kitchen where my mom was waiting.

 

    “Okay, let’s do this!” Mom cheered, taking my hand and leading me to the car. I hadn’t yet earned my license, but I was slowly working on it. Sadly, driving was stressful and I didn’t deal very well with stress. “Oh, this is going to be wonderful!”

 

    Mom walked out to the car, and I followed in tow. Mom walked over to the driver’s side of the car, and the I walked over to the passenger's side. I had been sitting in the front seat of the car since I was twelve, it was my place in the car. I knew that it wasn’t very safe, but I had the ability to look out of the window next to me and the windshield to see trees and animals and such.

 

    I didn’t say anything on the whole car ride, which was normal for me. I just liked to watch the trees that went past the car as we drove to Dr North’s mental health clinic. Mom kept on talking about her job. Sometimes, Annie would interject a comment as to what happened that day or how tell wonderful or terrible something was.

 

     My mom knew that I was listening, but that for the most part I was just going to tune her out. It wasn’t anything personal, I had just always been this way with car rides. I didn’t talk to people, people didn’t talk to me. So Mom would talk  _ at _ me, which was pretty simple on my half. I didn’t say anything and just looked out the window.

 

     As the trees flew past, I worried more and more about Connor. He had talked about his dad being careless about his mental health before, and Connor had been mean to Zoe before. I worried that maybe the Murphy family wasn’t as perfect as they lead people to believe. But, most of all, I was worried about what Connor was trying to escape when he killed himself.

 

     I traced Connor’s name on my cast again, watching the mental health clinic Mom took me to come into view. The building was one story, made from brick and had the most ugly bushes I had ever seen growing in the rocky lawn area in front of the building. Mom and I both agreed that the bushes were absolutely terrible, and I had no idea why they were uprooted and traded for something that looked better, like some trees.

 

     “You ready?” Mom asked, looking me in the eyes across the car. I nodded once, smiling as I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the passenger side door. I stepped out of the car and waited for Mom while she rifled through her purse for a second.

 

    I took a step into the parking lot and close the door behind me, seeing that the parking lot was almost completely empty. Apparently, people didn’t like to see their therapists on Monday nights, and the lack of cars showed that. I took another step away from the car, hoping that Connor would show back up and I wouldn’t have to call for him.

 

     “Connor, can you please come back now?” I whispered into the air, I wasn’t sure how else to call him back. I figured that calling him out in the open would work to get Connor’s attention. “I really need you around, I really think that you’ll want to meet Dr North. Not only that, but my mom is going to be talking about it to him, and he’s going to want proof.”

 

     “I’m back, Hansen.” Connor appeared back on my shoulder in his Franta disguise again. His legs were crossed, and he looked very chill and casual. “Let’s just go and get this over with, I think I really need those updates. I’m feeling a slight bit dizzy.”

 

    “These things usually take up to about an hour, so can you hold out until then?” I asked, my eyes wide with worry. I didn’t want to push Connor, but I also needed him around. Squip health, as Dr North had said a few times, was very linked to mental health. “Then we can go home and you can update in peace.”

 

     “I can deal for another hour, no problem.” Connor replied, redoing his ponytail mechanically. His body was still rigid and defensive, and I worried that he still wasn’t fully okay. I hope that maybe going to see Dr North would help him. “Let’s just get this over with.”

 

    “Yeah, let’s go.” I smiled walking over to Mom, so we could walk in together like we always did. For the first time in a long time, I felt more in sync with Mom. It was like I could understand her better than before. “This is going to be kind of awesome, walking in here with a Squip for the first time.”

 

    “Enjoy it, Evan!” Mom took my hand and squeezed it, smiling at me. Her face was always alight whenever she smiled at me, she always looked more beautiful when she was smiling and happy. “This is a big moment for you. And Franta, you look wonderful, honey.”

 

    Connor looked away from my mom, but she didn’t seem to notice. We walked into the waiting room with confidence I didn’t know I had. Mom peeled away from me almost right away when she saw that the waiting had gotten new magazines. Mom lived for the crappy magazines that they had here, they were her one sources of entertainment some days.

 

    I walked up to the desk. Ever since I was little, my mom had had me walk up to the counter and sign myself in without her. I liked the guy who sat behind the desk, his glasses were usually falling off of his nose, and he could be slightly sarcastic, but he was always nice to me. His name was Benny, and he was one of my favorite people here, other than Dr North.

 

     “Hello, Benny.” I greeted, and Benny looked up from the newspaper he was reading. He squinted at me for a second before realizing it was me standing in front of him. “It’s Evan Hansen for Dr North.”

 

     “Oh, Evan!” Benny exclaimed, happy to see me again. His voice was the loudest sound in the waiting room. “It’s great to see you again, kid! So you’re here for your appointment. . . Yep, you’re checked in. Have a good time today, Evan.”

 

    “Thank you, Benny.” I smiled, turning around before Benny saw Connor and said something about it. Benny hated Squips, and he liked me so much because I didn’t have one. So, now that I had one, I worried that our friendship would be broken. “Have a great day.”

 

     “Bye, Evan.” Benny called as I walked away, back to where Mom and Annie were reading a magazine together.

 

    The waiting room was very simply designed, with simple chairs and a few potted plants lining the walls. The color scheme was simple, with eggshell white walls and a sandy brown carpet. The chairs were a light grey, making the whole room seem gentle and welcoming. Mom and I were the only people in the waiting room. Aside from Benny behind his desk, of course.

 

     I sat down next to Mom, just like always. Just like always I didn’t read anything or make any noises or try to initiate any conversations, not even with Mom. Just like always, I just played with my fingers in an effort to let up on some of the tension that was pent up in my body. Unlike always, I had a Squip this time who I could talk to.

 

     “How are you doing?” I asked Connor, and he snapped his fingers and appeared on the armrest of the chair I was sitting on. My voice was barely above a whisper, and I didn’t know if I was too loud or too quiet. “You still need to update urgently?”

 

     “Yeah, that kind of thing just doesn’t go away, Hansen.” Connor glared at me. He obviously was used to replying to coddling and babying with spite and smart remarks. “Look, don’t worry about me, okay? I already told you I’m fine, so don’t even think about it. Just worry about you, this is your session, okay?”

 

     “Okay, I get that but I just don’t want you to pass out or something else.” I bit my lip, worrying that I was worrying too much. But worrying led to more worrying, which led to an avalanche of even more worrying. “Please promise me you’ll tell me if something happens to you.”

 

      “You’ll be the first person to know, Hansen.” Connor said coldly before disappearing again. I sighed deeply, he was doing the exact opposite of what I had told him to do. He was now moody and not present.

 

    And, just like always, I only had myself to blame for something going wrong.

 

     “Evan Hansen.” A voice called from in front of me, pushing me from my thoughts of self pity and anger. In front of me stood Dr North, in a blue polo shirt and khaki pants. A huge smile was spread over his face, and his glasses were cleaned so that they sparkled in the light. “It’s great to see you again!”

 

     Dr North believed that the way to achieve happiness was to always have a good attitude and never to never let anything get you down, no matter what. Part of me really wanted to live in his world, but it seemed closed off to me. He had the perfect wife, the perfect daughters (twins), the perfect car, the perfect house. Everything about him was perfect, so why should he ever get down about life?

 

     “And Heidi Hansen!” Dr North spoke about everything he cared about with a joy and conviction I’d never heard in any other voice. Mom looked up right away, and she walked across the waiting room to greet Dr North. “How wonderful it is to see you again!”

 

     “Please, Cody, just call me Heidi.” Mom said, and the customary Adult Conversation happened between them. It had been happening ever since I was a kid, it took about five minutes and it always made Mom feel better afterwards.

 

     Mom and Dr North would talk about everything from the weather, to how errands that they had had to run, to how amazing their children were. They would sometimes get very animated and heated, or sometimes the conversation wouldn’t rise above a whisper. It all depended on what they were discussing, but they would always laugh - a real laugh - at the end of the Adult Conversation.

 

     I tried to activate Connor again by any means I thought would work. I said his name under my breath, I thought his name, I thought the words ‘power on’ over and over and over again. I tried doing random hand movements, but they only served to make Benny raise an eyebrow at me. I soon gave up, deciding that Connor would come back when he felt like it.

 

     My mom’s laughter knocked me out of my world of self loathing, and I realized that the Adult Conversation was over. Mom gave me a hug one last time before walking back over to her chair and picking up her magazine again.

 

     “Why don’t you come with me, Evan?” Dr North asked. He always did this, he never told anyone to come with him. He said that everything anyone did in life was always a choice, and so was coming into his room and talking to him. “I heard something really awesome happened to you recently.”

 

     “Yeah, it was awesome.” I agreed, walking towards Dr North’s room with Dr North to me immediate left. Dr North smiled down at me, he was always happy when things got better in his patient’s lives. He wasn’t in it for the money, he really wanted to help people. “I got a Squip, finally.”

 

    “I thought you couldn’t have a Squip.” Dr North said, throwing open the door to his room. I walked through, thanked him quietly for holding open the door and then sat down on the normal couch I sat on. “You’re a part of the less than one percent, aren’t you?”

 

    “Well, I don’t think I am anymore.” I said, not sure if I should go into my theories, since all of them gave away that my Squip was once a real person. A real person who killed themself. So, probably not the best match for a depressed teenager with anxiety. “I felt this terrible pain on Friday night, then I woke up and my Squip - Franta - was hovering over me.”

 

    “Can you tell me more about how it feels to have a Squip for the first time?” Dr North asked, pulling my folder out of his tan filing cabinet and pulling out the notebook he had for me. He scribbled down a few words at the top of the page, and then looked back up at me. “It was awesome when I first got my Squip, though I don’t use him very much.”

 

     Dr North almost never used his Squip. He thought that it distracted from the things that mattered in life: humans and human connections. He was almost an anti-Squip advocate. However, he did use his Squip in his brain to help him remember things and bring up information whenever he needed information and didn’t have a laptop or tablet handy.

 

      “Well, at first it was scary.” I admitted, remembering all of things that had gone through my head when I first saw Connor hovering over me. “I was in pain, and I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I was dreaming, until I pinched my arm and I realized that I wasn’t dreaming, that I actually had a Squip.”

 

     “How did your Squip get the name of ‘Franta’?” Dr North asked, unable to look up from his notebook due to all the words he was writing. “Did you name him that for a reason? An old pet’s name, a famous person or something of the like?”

 

     “No, he came programmed with that name.” I tried, not sure if Dr North would say something about Squips not coming programmed with names. Thankfully, Dr North just kept writing furiously. “I kind of like it though, it isn’t something that most people think of when they think of plain old names. That’s why it’s kind of awesome.”

 

     “You said before that you thought you were dreaming.” Dr North’s voice caught on the ‘I’m going to bring up something from your past’ note. “Do your dreams at night usually involve pain acute to the kind of pain that you felt when your Squip entered your body?”

 

     “I don’t usually remember my dreams.” I said, just speaking plainly. There was no reason to lie, I almost never felt pain in my dreams. The few times I had, it hadn’t been physical, it had been emotional. “But no, the dreams I do remember never have any pain in them. That’s usually how I wake myself up from dreams.”

 

     “Ah, I see.” Dr North looked up from his notebook, smiling at me. “Can I see your Squip? I trust you’ve learned some of the basic commands for them over the weekend that you’ve had them.”

 

      A pit built in my stomach for a second, Connor wasn’t here and I feared that he wouldn’t come. I’d look like some kind of liar, or someone who was going crazy. Or maybe Dr North would understand that one weekend wasn’t enough time to fully understand how to use a Squip, that nothing was wrong with not knowing how to control a Squip.

 

     Then, all at once, Connor appeared on my shoulder.

 

    “Hello, Dr North.” Connor greeted Dr North, who waved back and smiled. Connor was dressed in his full Franta disguise, and he looked more polished than he usually did. It was funny to think he was trying to keep up appearances for a therapist that wasn’t even his. “My name is Franta. I’m Evan’s Squip, and it is wonderful to meet you.”

 

     “Hello, Franta.” Dr North greeted, though I saw that there wasn’t the same warmth in his voice when he talked to Connor as when he usually talked to a human. Maybe he was prejudiced after all. “I trust that Evan has told you about what I do and who I am?”

 

     “Yes, Hansen has told me about you.” Connor said, falling back into his habit of calling people by their last names, myself included. “You’re his therapist. And you’re pretty good, from what he tells me.”

 

    “Thank you for that, Franta.” Dr North said, the warmth still not in his voice. It was almost unsettling, he sounded like a Disney villain who had somehow snuck out of a storybook and into the real world. “So, Evan, do you have a letter for me to read again?”

 

      “Yeah, I do have a letter.” I fished my letter out of my pocket, not bothering to unfold it. I had forgotten the content, but I was sure it was something to do with something at school. “I printed it out again, I just don’t really feel any connection to the written word. I prefer to type, to be honest.”

 

      “The written word is something very few still appreciate these days, it seems.” Dr North said with a slight smile, taking the letter from my outstretched hand. Connor was still sitting on my shoulder, forcing himself to stay still. “So, this one is about Zoe again, it seems.”

 

     Suddenly, everything was not okay. My eyes got wide, how could I have forgotten what my letter was about? And there was only one possible Zoe that this letter could be about, and this only one possible Zoe’s brother was sitting on my shoulder in the form of a Squip. In other words, if Connor wanted to hurt my in a way I’d never forget, he could do almost anything to my body.

 

     “Yeah Z-Zoe.” I stuttered, hoping that my face wasn’t too red. Connor still hadn’t said anything, and I was worried that he was going to freak out at any moment. “She’s just a great person, really. A great friend, she’s just great. Really, really great. Great, just great. Great.”

 

     “Evan, is something the matter?” Dr North asked and leaned towards me, putting his pencil down on his notebook for a second. I felt like I was going to just stop breathing at any second. “You’re stuttering. Am I making you anxious or nervous?”

 

     “No!” I cried, swiping my hands from side to side to tell Dr North he wasn’t the problem. “You’re not doing anything wrong, Dr North. I just haven’t read this letter in a while, is all. I forgot it was about Zoe, and I panicked.”

 

     “Okay.” Dr North smiled gently and read the letter quickly in his head again. Then he looked back up at me, meeting my eyes. “Do you want to read it aloud, or should I?”

 

    “Let’s  _ not _ read it aloud!” I said loudly, getting up to take the letter out of Dr North’s hands and then sitting back down again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get kicked out of Dr North’s office for being out of line “How about we just don’t read it? We could just burn it, yeah let’s burn it. They did that with letters in a musical once, it looked pretty awesome. I say we burn it.”

 

     “Evan, what is wrong?” Dr North’s eyes were pleading, but I wasn’t sure how to tell him what was wrong. So, instead, I looked down to Connor.

 

    “Franta, is everything okay for you?” I asked, my voice shaking. Connor didn’t move or say anything for a while, but he soon spoke.

 

     “When were you going to tell me, Hansen?” Connor sounded betrayed and hurt. “Because I can only assume that the Zoe in these letters is, in fact, Zoe Murphy. I just don’t understand why you had to keep this from me.”

 

     “I wanted to tell you, I really did.” I tried to meet Connor’s eyes, but he looked away from me. “But I just didn’t know how to say that I liked Zoe. I mean, I thought that maybe you would feel hurt or betrayed. And I didn’t want that.”

 

    “You had chances to tell me, Hansen.” Connor’s voice was filled with something worse than anger: betrayal. “You  _ should _ have told me. I thought you trusted me.”

 

     “Now you know how it feels.” I said, remembering the hurt that I had felt when I found out about Connor’s suicide. “Maybe we can never just  _ be open _ with each other. But I am sorry, I should have found a better way to tell you.”

 

     “What is going on?” Dr North broke the conversation the Connor and I were having, reminding us that he was still in the room with us. I looked over at him, and Connor gave him a sideways glare. “Why does the fact that Evan has feelings for Zoe matter so much?”

 

    “I’ll tell you.” Connor volunteered, looking me straight in the eyes at he spoke. “Because he’s been using me to get close to her this whole time. Because my name is Connor Murphy, and because it can matter if I want it to matter.”

 

    And, with that, Connor disappeared.

 

     “Wait, did he say he was Connor Murphy?” Dr North asked, giving me a confused look as he tried to make sense of what Connor had just said. “How is that possible? Are you two role-playing or something? Evan, what is going on?”

 

    “I don’t know anymore.” I admitted, looking to Dr North with the beginnings of tears glittering in my eyes. This was now the second time Connor Murphy had made me cry. “I just woke up on Friday night with a Squip in my head, and now everything in my life has just changed from being normal and boring to being crazy and busy.”

 

     “Another reason why Squips should be banned.” Dr North said, hate soaking his words. I looked up at him, pain and worry filling my gaze. “They don’t do anything but ruin lives, really. You’re a perfect show of how terrible those things are. You had a good thing going before that Squip showed up.”

 

    “You know what, Dr North?” My voice rose, and I could feel myself about to do something bold - something stupid. “My Squip is more than just a computer program. He doesn’t deserve your hate. Yeah, he did some bad things, but he’s done some good things, too.”

 

    I stood up, feeling the weight of my body as I stood on my two feet to get up and walk away. Dr North looked up at me, his eyes wide with wonderment and worry. He was wondering how his patient, a depressed anxiety-ridden kid could learn to stand up for himself after getting a computer program in his head.

 

    I loved the look on Dr North’s face. It showed how far I’d come.

 

    “You can think of my Squip any way you want to.” I leaned close to Dr North, we were now only a foot away from each other. “But I’ll  _ always _ know that he’s the only person I’d ever trust in my head. The only friend I seem to have in this world. And I’m going to keep it that way.”

 

    I turned and left, feeling the best I had felt all week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and please leave a comment if you liked the story (or if you didn't, I would love to know if I missed something or if you think that I was off about something character-wise. Any kind of feedback is so amazing to get!).  
> If the trend of long chapters persists, this story could be up over 90,000 words based on the current chapter average. (I just hope it makes it to 96,000, that would be awesome!)  
> Have a great day!


	6. Do You Wanna Get Some Answers?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Connor still gone, Evan goes to school alone (again).  
> But, today is different. After a meetup with Zoe, Alana and Jared, Evan is recruited to do the first awesome thing in his teenage career: break into Larry Murphy's study to steal documents that surround Connor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to God, this chapter did not want to be written. Probably because Connor wasn't in it.  
> But, hey at lot of other important things happen and Evan is a cinnamon roll as usual.  
> Enjoy!

“Please just come back. You’ve updated by now, just come back.”

 

    My plea - much like the ones I had sent out to Connor for the last hour - was left unanswered. Connor, who had gone missing back at Dr North’s office, hadn’t showed up again. I grimaced at the thought of Dr North and our confrontation yesterday.

 

    After walking out of Dr North’s office, I told my mom that we were leaving and we were never coming back. Dr North ran after me, begging me to come back. But he had already said such horrible things about Connor, I didn’t ever want to go near that man ever again. I was going to find a new therapist who I could talk to, one who didn’t hate my Squip.

 

     Mom freaked out, saying that I needed to go back with Dr North, that he didn’t mean the offense that I had taken. I told her that I would never come back here, not if Dr North was working here. He had hurt my Squip, my friend, and I would never come back to see him. He couldn’t apologize, because I would know it was just a lie, and we were done.

 

     In other words: I was going to protect my friends from people who didn’t like them, and I was going to do so even at a personal cost.

 

     In a last show that I was never coming back, I ripped up the letter I had written to myself about Zoe right in front of Dr North, who gaped at my show. Once again, he had underestimated me. The feeling of confidence was amazing, and I couldn’t get off of the high that the emotion left me on, even after hours.

 

     I guess I had just never had any push to become more than a depressed, anxious teenager. But now I had a push, a reason to fight back. And that reason to fight back was Connor Murphy, my friend and my Squip.

 

     The Squip who refused to show himself to me. I had tried all night after Mom had drove me back from Dr North’s place. My mom was less than happy with my show, and she said that she was going to punish me one way or another, with or without my Squip being around.

 

    I had accepted that. I knew that there were going to be repercussions for my actions, and I had to deal with them one way or another. And, right now, dealing with them meant not meeting up with any friends before or after school. I had to be home at five o’clock, no exceptions. These seemed like things I could follow, it wasn’t like a had a huge social life anyways.

 

    Thankfully, the punishment would be almost impossible for Mom to enforce, which meant that if I really needed to, I could break the rules. I was pretty happy about this, I didn’t want to be stuck in the house doing nothing while the plan to get information from Zoe and Connor’s dad happened without me.

 

     Just sitting around, wondering and waiting, felt wrong. I didn’t want to just stop doing stuff because I was being punished. I still had to be there for Connor, even if he was mad at me. Because that was what friends did for each other, they didn’t let each other fight battles alone.

 

    Because, even though he was gone, I knew that I was in the wrong. I should have told him, just because he had done the same thing to me before, didn’t make my actions justified. I should have told Connor about my feelings for Zoe, but I hadn’t. Now I was going to make it up to both of them, but wait until Connor was back to tell Zoe about my feelings for her.

 

    Old habits die hard, I guess. And calling out for the person who had left me was one of my old habits.

 

    “Please come back, Connor.” I moaned, throwing my left arm over my eyes. My cast weighed my arm down, but I was still able to act like a damsel in distress. Maybe he would come to my aid then, if he knew how much I needed him back.

 

    But Connor wasn’t a knight in shining armor, and I was left without a Squip yet again. I sighed heavily and picked myself up off of my bed and walked myself over to my backpack, which was hanging from a simple brass-colored hook on the wall.

 

    I took a look outside, the sky was quickly clouding over and blocking out the sun. I had walked past the TV last night and had heard the weatherman saying that there was a very high chance of rain today. I hoped that it would start raining while I was in school, and not during my walks to and from the high school I was forced to go to by law.

 

    I picked up a hoodie from the same hook my backpack was once on, and put it on. I threw my backpack on over my hoodie and I pulled up the hood to maybe deplete the possibility that someone might talk to me. To my older neighbors, I was the nice young man next door who had broken his arm in a terrible accident.

 

     In other words, I was the perfect person to ask for any kind of help with household chores that no one wanted to do, like cleaning ceiling fans, painting pipes and cleaning out air vents. I wouldn’t mind doing them for someone who really needed my help, but when all of my neighbors ask at the same time it can be overwhelming.

 

     Stepping out onto the front stoop, I saw that the clouds were even more dark and angry when you were standing right under them. I shivered, thinking about all of the cold rain and chemicals from chemtrails that were suspended up in those clouds.

 

     “Please, please don’t rain on me.” I whispered up at the sky as I quickly walked to school, taking the fast route with all of the shortcuts that I hated taking.

 

     I took a shortcut through an alley that cut off a minute here, walked through a lawn and cut off another minute there. I walked through the park and cut off thirty seconds, forcing myself to go faster and faster. Every second counted, it looked like it was going to rain at any possible moment.

 

    Thankfully, the school came into view before the rain started, and I ran through the doors of Joliet High School as the first drops of rain fell onto the ground. Closing the door behind me, I quickly walked back to computer lab. For the past couple of days, I’d been coming early to school. For the first time in the history of my high school career, I wanted to be at school.

 

    I saw the computer lab come into view, happy to know that I still had a place to hide away from people who might seek me out. I smiled at the empty room and I walked over to my usual computer, logging in and opening up Chrome and Google Classroom to see what assignments I still needed to do for my classes.

 

     The assignments list was clear for both math and history, but I had an essay to write for English class. We had just finished reading Of Mice and Men. It had been a good book, and I had enjoyed it up until the ending. Though I would never admit it, when I finished the book at home I almost started crying. Why did Lennie have to die?

 

     I opened up the assignment for English and titled the Google Doc and uploaded it to Classroom, so my teacher could see that I was at least starting early. My teacher loved it when students went above and beyond, and I needed good grades for college, so it worked out great for both of us.

 

    Typing the beginnings of an essay, I tried to focus myself on the task at hand. But I kept thinking about Zoe and Connor. What would Zoe think when I told her why Connor wasn’t with me? How would she react? We had made our plans to get some answers from her father’s study yesterday, but she hadn’t contacted me again since then. Was Zoe going to think I was a bad person for driving Connor away?

 

     I wasn’t sure about if Jared was still going to come with us. Zoe would do everything possible to keep him from coming with, I knew that for sure. And I although I hadn’t heard anything from Alana, I hoped that she was coming along. I would feel a lot better if I had her along, she would be able to connect with computers without trying and get any information Connor might need. 

 

     Or maybe Alana wouldn’t show up. Or maybe Connor was right about Jared, and Jared would do something terrible. Or Zoe might choose not to go through with the plan. Or maybe Connor wouldn’t ever come back because I had been such a horrible friend, and I would never see him again.

 

     Or maybe I would mess things up, like usual.

 

     My fingers balled into fists as I tried to calm myself down while possible outcome after possible outcome filled my brain. I could see myself and everyone I cared about failing and going up in flames at the end of each failed scenario. Fear grew in my chest, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

 

    I took my hands off of the keyboard of Mac number 11, and I traced Connor’s name on my cast and took deep breaths. I counted to ten ten times in my head, tracing over Connor’s name and regulating my breathing the whole time that I did.

 

     Once the episode was over, I lifted my eyes back up the computer screen in front of me. The cursor blinked again and again, telling me to type something. I sighed and logged out, realizing that I was in too deep with Connor and the drama that seemed to follow him around to do schoolwork. I told myself I’d write the essay later, but I knew that I’d probably forget by the time I got home tonight.

 

    I knew that there was some kind of joke in the fact that my Squip was keeping me from doing good in high school, but my head was beginning to pound so I tried to stop thinking about high school for a second. I told myself to look beyond, but now the bleak college life I had once seen was impossible to find. I had a Squip now, I had Connor with me now.

 

    Why was it that I couldn’t stop the Murphy siblings from invading my life in one form or another? Zoe was my dream, she was beautiful and smart and talented. Connor was trapped inside my head for some reason, and I couldn’t get rid of him (not that I’d want to, it was nice to have someone to talk to when I had something on my mind).

 

     I slammed my head on the counter that Mac number 11 was on, and I pushed my chair away from the computer. I heard footsteps approaching, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to talk to Mrs Parpart yet. Yeah, she was nice, but she’d ask what was wrong and I’d have to lie more than before.

 

     “Evan, we need to talk.” The voice that spoke to me wasn’t Mrs Parpart’s, but it sounded familiar. I looked up, and I saw Zoe Murphy standing over me. Her hair was flowing freely down her back, and she had on a flowy blouse and skinny jeans and different flats than yesterday. “Are you okay, is something wrong?”

 

    “Yeah, I’m okay.” I quickly pulled myself up into a sitting position, falling off of the chair I was sitting in in my haste. From the ground, I smiled awkwardly up at Zoe. She gave me a look and offered her hand to me, and I took it. With a rush of pride, I realized that this was the first time I’d touched Zoe.

 

    With a sudden burst of strength, Zoe pulled me to my feet. I gave her another smile as a thanks, and she returned the gesture. My feet were close to her’s our chests were only a few inches apart. Without thinking, Zoe and I both took a step back. My face was on fire, but Zoe didn’t notice.

 

     “So, Alana agreed to help us with that  _ school project _ we’re working on.” Zoe stretched out the words ‘school project’, to add emphasis that what she was talking about wasn’t really a school project. It was the mission to get some answers about Connor she was talking about. “And she wants to talk to everyone about it.”

 

     “Everyone meaning Jared and I?” I asked, fear rising in my chest. What was I supposed to tell Zoe about Connor? The truth, or should I make up some kind of lie that is so expert that she won’t be able to know it is a lie? “Because I can meet with you guys, no problem.”

 

    “I think we’ll be needing you Squip’s help more than we need Jared’s help.” Zoe said Jared’s name with rage filling her voice. She really wasn’t happy about him coming along on her little excursion, she didn’t want him to mess it up. “But Alana is waiting, so we should get to her right now. Before class starts, so none of us will be late to first period.”

 

    “Okay.” I replied, allowing Zoe to lead me out of the computer lab and to wherever Alana was. Something about Zoe’s voice told me that she didn’t intend to go to class today, and I couldn’t blame her. I was having trouble focussing on my subjects since Connor wasn’t around. I knew I had survived before without him, but now that he was gone I felt empty.

 

    I had no time to worry about whether or not Zoe was going to class, because she was now walking out of the computer lab, walking away from me and leaving me behind. I knew for a fact that as soon as Zoe went into the hallway, I’d lose her and I wouldn’t be able to find her again. Zoe left the computer lab, and I tried was right behind her as she walked away.

 

    Zoe once again weaved through the hallway without much effort, she had always been good at dodging her fellow students as she got from place to place in the school. A few people called out her name in a greeting, and Zoe sent them a fleeting smile before picking up her pace and nearly running to wherever Alana was.

 

    It was hard for me to keep up, but I was managing. Trying not to lose Zoe in the halls meant having to almost run into people, for which I got more than one dirty look. I knew that almost every single other student in the school wasn’t as uncoordinated as I was. They were able to run without tripping, thanks to Squips. Then there was me.

 

    Finally, Zoe stopped in front of the same classroom that she had confronted me in yesterday. She walked through the doorway, and I followed closely behind. Nothing had changed about the room, other than the fact that now there was Alana Beck sitting on one of the desks in the room. Alana was talking to her Squip, a teenage boy who looked almost exactly like Daniel Radcliffe.

 

    It was widely known that Alana’s most favorite book series was Harry Potter. Her favorite book was the Prisoner of Azkaban, and her favorite Harry Potter movie was The Deathly Hallows Part Two. She had dressed up as Hermione Granger for Halloween since she had first picked up a Harry Potter book in sixth grade, and she still dressed up as Hermione for Halloween. She once even broke her glasses to tape them like Harry’s.

 

     Alana’s glasses were no longer taped together, though. She took care of herself, more than what should be normal for a teenage girl. She had to, because of the fact that part of her body was computerized. Her clothing could only be cotton, so she was wearing a shirt with the Hogwarts insignia, with a medium length pink skirt. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was wearing a pleasant smile on her face that tied everything together.

 

    “Hey, Alana.” I waved, and Alana looked up at me. She smiled when she saw me, something I wasn’t used to people doing when they saw me. Her smile looked almost sad, though and it made me weary. “It’s really great to see you. I’m so happy that you’re going to help Connor, Zoe, Jared and I.”

 

    “Jared isn’t coming with us, Evan.” Zoe crossed her arms over her chest, looking at the maps on the walls as she spoke. She looked like she was travelling to distant worlds as she looked at the maps, and it made me admire her. Even when she was being condescending, I couldn’t stop loving her. “He isn’t fit to come with us on this excursion.”

 

    “Who said I couldn’t come with on the mission that I was invited to?” Jared poked his head through the crack between the doorway, and giving Zoe a shit-eating grin. Zoe’s eyes got big as she looked at Jared, rage filling her gaze. “I mean, don’t you know how to be courteous, Zoe Murphy? Or do I have to tell you? Because first you let me come with and then you-”

 

    “ _ Stop talking _ .” Zoe ordered, her voice raising in pitch and volume as she cut off Jared. The grin he was wearing only got bigger, and I knew that this conversation would only make their relationship worse. “Jared Kleinman, you may tag along on our operation. But if you breathe even the faintest word of this to anyone, so help me-”

 

    “I’m into whatever kinky stuff you have planned, darling.” Jared walked over to the desk next to Alana, giving her a smile as he sat down. Alana didn’t return the gesture, and I wasn’t sure if she liked being so close to her or not. “Just don’t let anyone else in on it, okay? Threesomes are messy, and I’m pretty sure Evan here is still a virgin.”

 

    “ _ Jared _ , what the Hell?” I exclaimed, my face heating up. Jared gave me a smile and winked, then started talking quietly to Quinn. 

 

     “I’m just telling the truth.” Jared shrugged, speaking in a nonchalant voice. Quinn smiled apologetically at me from Jared’s shoulder, trying make things better. But my face only got redder and redder, and it didn’t help that Zoe was in the room.

 

     “Ignoring that.” Alana pursed her lips and gave Jared a small glare, though it was nothing near the kind of looks that Connor and Zoe gave him. “I have something pretty important to tell Connor. Evan, can you call him up for me, please?”

 

     “Um, I don’t know how to?” I said, gaining looks from everyone in the room, including the Squips. Alana still was patient, she had almost expected my answer. “And I don’t think he wants to deal with this right now. He’s, uh, updating.”

 

     “Updating?” Zoe asked, raising an eyebrow. Rose was sitting on her shoulder, in the same outfit she had been wearing yesterday. “Couldn’t he have done that at night, like all of the other Squips do? I mean, why do it now at school?”

 

     “He started updating last night, and he just hasn’t finished, I guess.” I spoke quickly, worried that no one would believe me. Alana sighed lightly, but snapped her fingers and brought up a holographic screen in front of her anways. 

 

     “Okay, Evan, you’ll have to relay this stuff to Connor later today, okay?” Alana looked at me, to see if I understood. I nodded once, and sat down at a desk. “From what I’ve seen with Squips, they’re very delicate computer programs. They can fragment very easily if they’re under too much stress, and they can never have full personalities.”

 

     “Why can’t they have full personalities?” Jared questioned, looking to Quinn and then to Alana. “I mean, why not spare the few lines of code to make them seem more human?”

 

    “If they had full personalities, they would have fears.” Alana pointed out, her Squip sat down on her shoulder as she spoke. He seemed to be less hyperactive than Connor. “And fears would lead to irrational choices. If irrational choices were made by Squips, crime would skyrocket and we’d need more than three prisons per state in the USA.”

 

     “What does this have to do with Connor?” I wondered aloud, happy to be learning more about Squips. I knew that before Squips things were worse, people went hungry in the world and there was a lot of crime. Then Squips came and people changed. “I mean he had fears, so does that mean he can’t be a good Squip?”

 

     “This has nothing to do with Connor being a good Squip or not, but everything to do with finding out what he is.” Alana looked at her holographic screen, scrolling through document after document. “Connor had fears as a human being, which makes me wonder why he has become a Squip after his death. It shouldn’t be possible, yet it is.”

 

    “What are your running theories?” Zoe asked, straightening her back out as she spoke. Rose didn’t move, and had stayed silent this whole conversation. “I mean, you have to have some kind of idea  _ how _ this happened, right?”

 

    “Well, saying anything this early is really tough.” Alana looked around the room, holding up her hands and trying to tell us that she really was just guessing at this point. “There are no other documented cases of this kind of thing happening to anyone else in the world. However, the key here might be the fact that both Connor and Evan couldn’t have Squips.”

 

    No one in the room said anything. Jared leaned towards to Alana to hear what she was about to say, and Zoe was giving Alana her undivided attention. I nodded once at Alana, telling her to keep on talking. No one wanted to interrupt her, her theories were probably more sound than anything I had come up with - which was nothing, but still.

 

    “I believe that the reason that Connor is serving as a Squip inside of Evan’s head is because they were both unable to have Squips implanted in their heads.” Alana said, looking quickly to everyone’s faces, waiting to see understanding show up on them. “The open implants must have communicated with each other, sending to Evan a carbon copy of Connor, who is really nothing more than an empty Squip implant creating an AI unit out of Connor’s personality.”

 

    “Is that even possible?” Jared raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly. He thought Alana was messing with him, the idea of computers and Squips spying on people was an overplayed Hollywood trope. “I mean, I thought that when an implant doesn’t work for someone, the implant just becomes dormant.”

 

     “But it couldn’t work in the first place, so why would it turn off?” Alana made a ‘just hang with me here’ gesture with her hands. “I mean, if a computer can’t turn itself on inside of someone’s head, then how will it be able to turn itself off? It is widely known that Squips learn from their users, it is how people get what they want with the help of Squips. So why wouldn’t the implant try to take notes on Connor’s personality?”

 

    “But why send it to me and my implants?” I asked, not understanding what any of this had to do with why the supposed Connor clone was inside of my head and not someone else’s head. “If my implants were doing the same thing, wouldn’t they be too busy to take in a Squip?”

 

     “Squips are programmed to sync with the Squips closest to them automatically.” Alana explained. “So, my theory is that Connor’s implants synced with Evan’s all of the time, because Evan’s implants were the only ones that were also unoccupied. Squips are programmed to  _ not _ sync with unused implants, so wouldn’t it make sense that unused implants would sync with other unused implants?”

 

    “Your theory does sound sound.” Zoe frowned, impressed. She smiled at Alana, happiness flashing across her face at Zoe’s smile. “Thank you so much for at least giving us something to think about today before we get some documents that might answer some questions we have.”

 

     “We’re doing that tonight?” My voice rose and I felt dread curl in my chest. I was sans Squip, again, I was going to break into someone’s house? How was I supposed to do that without help? “Do you have a plan on how we’re going to get there and how we’re going to break in?”

 

    “You’re all going to show up at my house at eight o’clock, sharp.” Zoe looked to Jared as she talk, almost as if she were daring him to show up. “I’ll send my address and everything else you need to know to your Squips tonight. You’ll know everything by six o’clock, at the latest.”

 

    “I don’t have a Squip.” I raised my hand. Everyone in the room gave me a weird look, but when teachers said that they were going to send something to everyone’s Squips, I’d have to raise my hand to remind them that they also had to post it to Google Classroom. “Well, I do, but he still hasn’t stopped updating yet.”

 

    “Do you have a cell phone?” Zoe asked, as she reached into her backpack to pull out a pen and a piece of paper. I nodded, and Zoe quickly wrote her number down onto the piece of paper she gave me. “There’s my number, text me tonight around six.”

 

    “Okay, can do.” I smiled, feeling ecstatic that  _ Zoe Murphy _ had just  _ given me her number _ . I had to suppress my smile as I held the paper in my hand, but I wanted to jump up and down and cheer. I was getting closer to Zoe since Connor had died than I ever would have if Connor were still alive.

 

     I hated to think it, but Connor’s death had turned out to be good for me.

 

    I shivered at the thought, and I quietly watching Jared argue with Zoe to get her number, while Alana and her Squip talked quietly to each other about what they were going to with the information they got from the mission tonight. Everything looked like it should, just a group of friends who were meeting up after school to ‘work on a project’. Or, at least that’s how the outside eye would see it.

 

    Over the loudspeaker, the bell sounded. Not wanting to be late for class, Alana shot up and ran out of the room, quickly saying goodbye before running to her class. Zoe quickly grabbed her backpack and slung it over her back, before looking from me to Jared for a minute.

 

    “You two are going to show up, right?” Zoe sounded unsure, almost nervous. I couldn’t think of any time that she had ever sounded unsure of herself, this was the first time. “I can count on both of you to show up tonight?”

 

    “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, darling.” Jared laid a hand over his heart dramatically, closing his eyes and looking like he was doing the Pledge of Allegiance. Zoe scoffed and rolled her eyes, looking to me instead.

 

    “I’ll be there, Zoe.” I smiled gently, trying to make her feel better about Jared. Zoe’s gaze softened as I spoke, she seemed to like having someone positive say something reassuring every once in a while. “I can’t guarantee that Connor will show up, but I do know that I’ll be there for sure.”

 

    “Just be there.” Zoe said, turning around to run to class.

 

* * *

 

 

“Why won’t you just understand I’m sorry and come back, Connor?”

 

    I was, once again, trying to get Connor to come back. He was still gone, feeling betrayed that I hadn’t told him about my crush on his sister. But, to be fair, I wasn’t sure how he would react. I knew that I was just repeating the same excuses over and over again, but I didn’t know what else to do.

 

    Done with calling out for Connor, I walked to the kitchen to get some more chocolate chips. Mom had gotten me a new bag, so at least I’d have food while I waited around for six to roll around so I could text Zoe. I was going to text her one minute after six, to text her early but not too early.

 

    My mind wandered to my uneventful school day as I drifted to the kitchen. Today had been boring, and I had had trouble paying attention. All I could think about was the mission tonight, I just wanted to start the mission and become someone more than who I had always been. To help Connor find out who he really was, who had always been.

 

    I dug through the cupboards to find the chocolate chips I knew were hidden somewhere behind the other food. I heard thunder roll outside as I pulled the chocolate chips from where they sat at the back of the middle cupboard on the West wall. I knew my kitchen well.

 

    I tore open the bag with my hands and ate a few mouthfuls of the chocolate amazingness right away, happy to just have some sugar in my system. I would need the sugar boost when I walked to Zoe’s house, I doubted that I would be able to call a cab to come pick me up. A cab would leave a trail leading back to me, and that would mean that Mom would know if I left the house when I was grounded.

 

    Mom was off at work again, she was probably doing something gross or medical right now, while I was gearing up to do the most awesome thing in all of my teenage years. Okay, climbing the tallest tree in the local park was awesome, but breaking into Larry Murphy’s study to get information about Connor Murphy was a legendary teenage act.

 

    So, when I was older and sitting with my kids telling them about my teenage years, I can say that I committed an awesome crime to help out a friend. As far as I was concerned, doing something illegal wasn’t too bad as long as you did the illegal thing for a moral reason.

 

    The thunder clapped again, and I jumped in the air in shock. I tried to steady my breathing, I still hated storms even though I was not a kid anymore. I just hated any kind of loud noise, ever since I was a kid loud noises had just stressed me out to the point of making me want to curl up in my bed away from any loud noise that might try to scare me.

 

    I pulled out my cell phone and I sat down at the kitchen table. I opened up the contact that I had made for Zoe, it was the first thing I had done when I got home. I didn’t want to pull out my phone at school, it just made me feel weird. There weren’t any rules against it, but it always made me feel so far away from my phone-less Squiped peers.

 

    Zoe’s contact had a picture of her from last year’s yearbook in it, I loved that photo of her. She was really smiling, not like the smiles that most people give for the camera. They give their social media smiles, the ones that don’t show all of their teeth and don’t show wrinkles on their faces, or else they might look ‘old’ or ‘ugly’ at age fifteen.

 

    Zoe didn’t care if she showed her laughter line off, she just smiled and looked like she was having the time of her life. Well, at least compared to everyone else in the yearbook who looked like they didn’t feel emotions at all and were just baring their teeth at the camera for the heck of it. I hated looking at my own photos, but I tried to look good for school picture day at least.

 

     I checked the clock on my phone two, three, five times before opening up a new text to send to her. I was slightly glad that Connor wasn’t here to see me text his sister, he would either care very little or very much. Either way, it would be weird to have someone looking over my shoulder and judging my every move.

 

    Typing out the text, I hit ‘send’ and I looked down at the chat that I had started between Zoe and I.

 

 **EvanHansen:** hey, Zoe. you told me to text you at 6, so here i am

 

    Zoe’s response was almost immediate.

 

**ZoeMurphy:** My address is 1012 East Franklin. Can you get a cap here, or do you wanna ride?

 

**EvanHansen:** ill just walk. ill be there in about 15 minutes

 

**ZoeMurphy:** See you then. Be careful when walking here, dont get hit by a car. And try not to get too wet, it is raining pretty hard out right now.

 

**EvanHansen:** ill try not to get hit

 

    Zoe didn’t say anything in response, but I was so happy to hear that she at least kind of cared about my well being. She had warned me not to get hit, so she at least cared about me for at least a warning over a text. I smiled, maybe this whole ‘dating Zoe Murphy’ thing would work out.

 

    I looked outside, cringing and not wanting to walk. Why did I tell her I’d walk? Why didn’t I just ask for a ride? I mentally kicked myself for not taking the ride, now I had to walk in the rain and I’d end up coming to Zoe’s house soaking wet. Not the best way to show up to my future girlfriend’s house.

 

    I walked back to my room, taking my chocolate chips with me, and I grabbed a few plastic Walmart bags before I left the kitchen. I had a plan on how to get to Zoe’s house at least partially dry, and if that fails, at least I’ll have some clothes to change into later.

 

    I got out a new outfit (blue jeans, a plain light blue shirt, an extra pair of socks and underwear) and folded them nicely and put them into the Walmart bag, making sure to tie the bag tightly. Now my clothes would be safely hidden away in a waterproof bag, and I threw it into my backpack.

 

    I put on a hoodie, and I hoped that the hoodie and poncho and the extra pair of clothes would be enough of a contingency plan for the rain. I also put my chocolate chips in a Walmart bag and tied that shut too, there was no reason I shouldn’t be able to eat chocolate while breaking into someone’s office.

 

    I rummaged through my chest of drawers for my poncho, the bright yellow plastic thing was still unopened. Even though I didn’t have very good luck, I had never had to walk to or from school in pouring rain before. I slid the yellow garment out of the wrapping. I sighed as I looked at it, at least the bright yellow plastic would ensure that cars didn’t hit me.

 

     I put on my shoes and tied the laces so tight my feet hurt, even though I knew the blue New Balance shoes wouldn’t be able to keep out the water. Sadly, the only waterproofing coating Mom and I had was in the basement. And I  _ wasn’t _ going down there, the basement scared me beyond anything I thought was possible. No pair of shoes were worth dying from a monster or ghost living in my basement.

 

    I walked to the kitchen, trying to get used to the feel of everything on me at the same time. Before leaving, I stopped in front of the mirror in the kitchen to put on my backpack and throw my poncho over my body. I studied myself in the mirror for a second, why was it that I always looked like a loser no matter what I wore?

 

    Pulling my eyes away from the mirror, I walked over to the back door in the kitchen. I usually used the back door to get in and out of the house, it was just a habit that I had taken up over the last few years. Through the door, I could hear the sound of the rain slapping against the ground and on the roof, and the flash of lightning could be seen through the kitchen windows. I really didn’t want to go outside.

 

    I put my hand on the doorknob, holding my breath and then throwing the door open in front of me. Outside, the rain was steadily falling, and the thunder and lightning only seemed to be getting worse. I let out the breath I was keeping in, and I looked down at my cast once, hoping that the poncho would keep it dry.

 

    Without another thought, I threw myself out into the rain. 

 

* * *

 

 

    Rain was everywhere. In my shoes, on my chest, in my hair. No matter how many times I pulled my hoods back up over my head, they would come down in the wind. No matter how many puddles I tried to step around, a car would always just fly past and soak me even more. I feared that my clothes - or worst, my chocolate chips - were just as waterlogged as I was.

 

    As my journey slowly came to an ending, I was cursing myself more and more for not asking Zoe for a ride. Now I would show up soaking wet and cold to see her, probably not the best way to sneak around someone’s house. I hoped that I’d have time to change before we started running around Zoe’s house.

 

    Finally, Franklin street and Zoe’s house came into view. The house was almost three stories tall, with a grey exterior and large windows on the second floor that looked to be nearly floor to ceiling. The front yard was perfectly maintained, with lilies and bushes growing in a patch of garden in front of the house. There were lights on in every single window, which seemed excessive if only Mrs Murphy was home, it wasn’t like she could be in every room of the house at once.

 

    Lighting flashed and everything was lit up for a fraction of a second, and I could see Zoe leaning against the house under an overhang. From where she was standing, no one looking out of any windows would be able to see her, it was the perfect place to hide away from other people in the house. However, anyone outside of the house would be able to clearly see her.

 

   Running over to Zoe, I was so happy that I had spotted her. She was looking down at her phone, but as she heard my footsteps she looked up. I stuck to the sidewalk as much as I could as I ran, and I ducked down so I wasn’t in view of the windows as I finally got to where Zoe was standing.

 

    “You could have just asked for a ride, you know.” Zoe smirked, almost amused at my current state. I blushed and looked away, feeling like an idiot. “Well, you can wait here with Alana and I for Jared to show up.”

 

    “Hello!” Alana said in a sing-song voice from beside Zoe. I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen her before, she was obviously standing right next to Zoe. “I guess that I should stop running my invisibility, don’t you think?”

 

    “Yeah, Evan couldn’t see you, so I think we know it works.” Zoe nodded, turning to Alana and talking to her. Alana smiled at Zoe, then at me, and started talking to her Squip.

 

    “Wait, how did you make yourself invisible?” I wondered, feeling left out of some kind of inside joke. Alana turn to me, looking happy to explain how she had made it seem like she wasn’t standing next to Zoe. “How is that even possible?”

 

    “I was able to affect your optic nerves to allow myself to become invisible.” Alana said passively, waving her hand as if it was nothing huge that she could become invisible. “I can also do the same thing with people’s ears to make them not hear me, but it takes concentration to perfect and I usually don’t have the time or the focus to use it in a dire situation. So I usually just have to rely on my reflexes and wit to get out of situations.”

 

    “Aren’t some of your limbs synthetic?” I asked, trying to remember to what degree Alana was a trans-human. I knew she had a very advanced Squip chip in her head, it allowed her Squip to regulated everything from heartbeat to brainwaves. “I know you have extra implants in your head, but I don’t know about limbs.”

 

     “I have all human bones in my arms, with just genetically engineered muscles.” Alana pointed to her arms, flexing her muscles slightly. “My legs are fully synthetic, with non-human everything. My fingers have chips in them so I can use a holographic screen, and Danny can also regulate everything in my body that he needs to to make me run faster and jump higher.”

 

     “So, what would happen if Danny stopped working?” I cocked my head to the side, wondering why someone would give their Squip so much power over their body. And now that I knew Alana’s Squip’s name I could safely call her the ultimate Harry Potter fan, her Squip was named after and looked like Harry’s actor. “Not to be rude, I just want to know.”

 

    “It’s not rude, really.” Alana smiled and waved her hand dismissively, as if the question didn’t phase her at all. “If Danny were to stop working, my cybernetics would be able to sustain off of my body’s energy for about two hours. After that, I would be in trouble and I would need to go to a hospital right away, but I still wouldn’t be stable without another advanced Squip in my head within twelve hours of Danny’s failure. But that would never happen, so I’m not worried.”

 

     “That’s right, I’m the most advanced model of Squip on the market today.” Danny beamed. He pushed his hair out of his face, he just seemed to ooze cool. What was it about Squips and being so awesome? “If I were to fail, it would have to be at the hand of the most advanced malware in the world. Even then I could - and would - fight back against it.”

 

    “I still think it’s really cool that you’re a trans-human, Alana.” I said, looking at her and then at Danny. Danny didn’t look any different from any other Squip I had seen, it must all be in the code that he was made out of. “I mean, it must be so awesome to wake up every morning knowing that you can do anything you want to.”

 

    “Not anything I want to do.” Alana chuckled, shaking her head slowly. Her usually happy face fell, sadness flashing across it. “Trans-humans aren’t very well liked, really. We have a hard time fitting in, and we don’t usually make a lot of friends. That is why I’m so happy to be here, I’m happy to be trusted with something this big.”

 

    “Yeah, a bunch of friendless people breaking into a study to get answers about a dead kid who no one liked.” Zoe’s voice was sarcastic and had a bite to it. “Just the place everyone wants to be. Other than Jared, it appears. He’s late, what is with that kid and not being on time?”

 

    “I guess some people are just never on time.” Alana shrugged, opening up a holographic screen and clicking around on it to look at Google results for something I couldn’t read. “Not even Squips can change certain things about people, some things are just ingrained in people’s heads.”

 

    “If he doesn’t show up soon I’m going to be really pissed.” Zoe growled, her low voice reminded me of Connor when he was angry. Zoe and Connor were almost twins sometimes it seemed. “I’m going to-”

 

    “Hug me and tell me you’re happy I’m here?” Jared guessed from behind Zoe, cutting off her sentence. She seethed with rage when she saw him again, biting her lip to keep from saying something. “I told you I’d be here, darling. Believe me, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

 

    “Looks like everyone’s here, other than Connor.” Alana looked at me as she spoke, subtly asking me where Connor was and why he wasn’t out in the open. “Should we get going on this mission, or wait for Connor?”

 

    “We need to get going, we can’t wait for Connor.” Zoe looked down at her clock for the time, happy to dig through all of the documents in her father’s possession. I wasn’t sure if she was doing it for Connor or for herself, though. “We only have a half hour window when my mom is away and my dad is with a ‘friend’. So, we need to go  _ now _ .”

 

    Alana and Jared looked at me, silently wondering if I was going to protest and say that we wait for Connor to show up so we can all go in together. But I wasn’t going to argue, Connor was going to show up when he needed to, and I had been asking him to come back for hours today. I was done reasoning with him.

 

    “Let’s go.” I agreed, nodding once in Zoe’s direction. She was right, we couldn’t let anything interfere with our plans, much less waiting for Connor to show up. He’d learn about everything that we had done at a later date.

 

    “Everyone activate your Squips to sneak mode.” Zoe ordered, then whispered quietly to Rose. Alana and Danny nodded once at each other, and Jared lazily snapped his fingers and Quinn jumped onto his shoulder and flashed once. I tried to ready myself to not trip or fall over something. I had to be the more coordinated I had ever been right now.

 

     “Everyone ready?” Zoe asked, pulling a black mask over her face. The mask was made of cloth, and allowed her to breathe through it, but with it on her entire body was bathed in black. She looked like she was ready to break into Fort Knox.

 

    Alana tied her hair back and pulled up a black scarf over her mouth and nose like Zoe had, and Danny dimmed in brightness. Jared had come in a black hoodie (it was dry, so had either taken a cab or had driven here) and black pants, but he didn’t do anything to cover his face. I felt out of place, soaking wet and in plain, colorful clothes.

 

     I almost asked if I should change into dry clothes when Zoe took off running across the lawn. Her footsteps were silent, and she moved like a shadow. She stopped running near her front door and waved to call Jared, Alana and I over to her.

 

    Alana ran after her, only Alana was much more suited for this kind of thing. Her footsteps were short and quick, she was up in their for most of the short run to the front door. She looked liked she had been built for breaking into houses, and then Jared ran.

 

    Despite his Squip being in sneak mode, he almost tripped over his shoe while he was running in the lawn. Zoe glared at him and gritted her teeth, she couldn’t stand the idea of him ruining all of her plans. Jared finally made it to the house, and crouched near Zoe.

 

    I looked at Alana, Zoe and Jared, and they all motioned for me to come towards them. All I could think of was how uneasy I felt, what if I tripped and fell? Would I ruin everything? What if Mrs Murphy, who was in the house, looked outside and saw me in my yellow poncho? What if something bad happened and it was all my fault?

 

    Pushing the thoughts of failure out of my head, I ran towards where Zoe was. I just kept running, until I slid on the slick grass, it was tough for my shoes to find traction on wet things, and grass was one of the worse. Tripping, I landed right on the front stoop, right in view of all of the windows that were facing towards the front of the house.

 

    I landed right on my face, my hands breaking my fall. But not before my nose made contact and pain exploded in my nose, and I could feel hot blood rush down my face. The feeling of the warm blood and cold rain running down my face was strange, but I pulled myself up as fast I could, hoping that no one had seen my fail.

 

    I heard Zoe facepalm and Jared hold his breath next to me. Alana was farther back, but she was already calculating a way to find a way out of the hole I had gotten everyone into. I looked into the house, seeing a woman in a robe and black clothes - Mrs Murphy - walk to the front door. She had undoubtedly heard the sound of me falling on the front steps.

 

    Frozen in fear, I felt the rain fall harder down on me. I looked at my hands, seeing red rubies coating the broken skin. I hissed in pain and tried to pull myself up again when Mrs Murphy opened the door, looking down at a scared, bleeding teenage boy in a bright yellow poncho.

 

    Thunder rolled, and my blood mixed with the steadily falling rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it's been raining at least once a day in my town for the last 25 days. So, I thought that adding some rain into the story would not only make it feel more like home for me and would make it seem more ominous when the DEH squad when to the Murphy home. However, because of the rain being so normal for so long, I couldn't avoid riding my bike to work in the rain. So I got myself sick, 10/10, Crystal.  
> But being sick means I can't go anywhere I have hours and hours to do nothing but write. So, that's an upside(?) of me getting sick, I guess.  
> Have a great day, and thank you to anyone who has left a comment or kudos! It really makes my day!


	7. To Break Bad News (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan and Mrs Murphy have a very long talk about Connor, Mr Murphy and life.  
> Then Connor shows back up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter took FOREVER to write. I was so worried that I wasn't writing for Evan the right way, and then I had the same fear with Cynthia. This chapter is long, and it took about a week to write.  
> This story is something I love to write, but lately every one of my friends and all my family wants to spend time with me.  
> I promise this story will be finished before September, though. Otherwise school will start again and I'll die under all of the stress.  
> Enjoy!

“I-I’m so sorry.”

 

    My choked voice betrayed how broken I felt on the inside. The rain, which wouldn’t seem to let up from falling down over me, mixed with my blood and my tears. My breathing was ragged, and couldn’t find out exactly why I was crying. I knew it wasn’t the pain in my hands or my nose, that wasn’t too bad. No, I suspected that I was so scared and anxious that I was crying. One of the downfalls of being me: not knowing why you’re crying.

 

     Even while my vision was obstructed by tears, I couldn’t tear my away from Mrs Murphy, who couldn’t tear her eyes away from me. We sat there, staring at each other as we tried to figure out what the other was trying to do. Mrs Murphy had every right to be freaked out by me and my sudden presence, but I didn’t understand why she hadn’t yet yelled at me to leave her home yet.

 

    “What do you have to apologize about?” Mrs Murphy asked, fear filling her gaze. I suddenly felt horrible that I had caused her fear. A different part of me wondered what kind of damage she thought I’d done. “Why are you here? Are you okay?”

 

    “I’m. . . I don’t know if I’m okay, Mrs Murphy.” I admitted, feeling an overwhelming and crushing guilt filling up my chest. I looked down at my body, and I tried pulling myself up to my feet. In front of me, Mrs Murphy extended her hand out to help me get up.

 

     My bleeding hands smeared blood on Mrs Murphy’s clean hands, and the blood from my nose was still steadily falling. I worried that my clothes would be stained with blood if the blood touched them, but I figured that there was some sort of detergent out there that just got blood out of clothing. My biggest worry jumped from blood to how to get myself out of the situation I was in in less than a second.

 

    “Well, at least come inside and then tell me what you’re doing here.” Mrs Murphy said in a calm, quiet voice. I grabbed onto her hand tighter, and she pulled me up to my feet. I took the boost and pushed my feet under the rest of my body. “I’ll find you a change of clothes, I don’t want you getting sick by being in those cold, wet clothes for longer than necessary. I’m sure you’ll fit into some of Connor’s old things.”

 

    At the mention of Connor, I went silent. I nodded and gave Mrs Murphy a sad smile, not telling her that I had my own clothes with me. That would have been weird, she’d think I was going to spend the night in her garage or something. Or maybe it would be a good idea to tell her, to let her know that I wasn’t a total idiot. I was just a teenage boy who was suffering with the loss of his friend, and coming to my friend’s old house was the best way to cope with the loss. The choice whether to tell Mrs Murphy about the clothes I had or not, along with all of my other choices, was causing me a headache right now.

 

    “Oh, honey, that doesn’t look good!” Mrs Murphy exclaimed in a small voice, looking at my nose. My hand flew up to it, and she was able to see the blood that was flowing from my hands now, too. “We have got to get you inside and cleaned up! I don’t want you to bleed or freeze to death!”

 

     I nodded again and was lead into the house, Mrs Murphy closing the door after me. She had gotten slightly wet from both me and the rain, but she was still mostly dry. She was wearing slippers and a robe, not the kind of clothes she’d be wearing if she knew she’d be ushering a cold, wet, crying, bleeding teenager into her home at nearly seven on a Tuesday night. A felt a pang of guilt when I realized that I had probably just ruined her Tuesday night.

 

    Once inside the house, Mrs Murphy ran to go get dry clothes or towels or something. I didn’t hear her say anything that she was going to get, she was just there one second and gone the next. Maybe it was seeing the blood, but I was dazed and I felt light headed. How was it that everything had happened so quickly? I’d put the whole mission in jeopardy, and now I was going to have to lie to Mrs Murphy about why I was in her home.

 

     The entryway to the Murphy house was amazing. The tile under my feet looked it had been polished with care within the last hour. The ceiling above my head was very high, and there was very dark wood that lined the doorways around me. I was standing in a three foot by tree foot area of tiled floor in the immediate entryway, but if I would take a few steps, my feet would land on a very plush, very perfect tan carpet. I couldn’t see most of the house, but I could see a large chandelier, it looked like it was either glass or crystal.

 

     I wanted to put my head in my hands and question everything that had just happened in the last ten minutes. Questioning my life choices wasn’t something I did very often, but this was one of those times. What the heck was I thinking, coming here? What were Zoe, Alana and Jared going to do now that I had blown the lid on our operation? Would they be able to somehow sneak into the house through a backdoor without Mrs Murphy noticing?

 

     I stopped questioning my choices and judgement when I heard footsteps. Mrs Murphy came back, walking around another wood-framed doorway and holding a plush, white hand towel in one hand. Worry was etched across her face, though I couldn’t tell if it was for her floors that I was getting water on, or if it was for me and my injuries and for the fact that I would probably wake up with a cold in the next few days.

 

    “Here you go, honey.” Mrs Murphy smiled at me, holding out the towel for me to take. I took it and put it under my nose, and the towel was soon stained with my blood. I felt bad, but I remembered the laundry detergent for blood and I felt a little better. “Come into the kitchen, you can drip water everywhere in there. I have to clean the floors anyways.

 

    Mrs Murphy lead me to her kitchen, and I saw just hold large the room was. It was huge, it looked like four of my kitchens put together, and that was just the floor space. There was modern art up on the walls, and the architecture of the place reminded me of something from a 1950 TV show. Everything followed the modern theme, and the kitchen table was a dark, perfect wood, with a metal bowl containing almost perfect looking apples on it. Everything about the kitchen seemed picturesque and perfect, almost too perfect for a family to have really used it.

 

      “Please, sit down.” Mrs Murphy gestured to the large, wooden table in the kitchen. I knew that there was most likely a larger, grander table in a dining room, but I had yet to see the dining room. Mrs Murphy sat down at the table, and I took a chair that was one seat away from her.  “Now, what’s your name, honey?”

 

      “My name is Evan Hansen.” I said, shedding the poncho that was now soaked. I felt better to have the plastic sheet off of my body, but my cotton hoodie was almost worse than the poncho. I unzipped the hoodie, and I slipped both of my arms out of it. Thankfully, my cast had stayed mostly dry. “I’m so sorry about bothering you, Mrs Murphy, really. I just came here-“

 

     “Connor!” Mrs Murphy gasped, looking at my cast. I followed her eyes and I looked down at my cast, to where Connor’s name was still written in perfect Sharpie. Mrs Murphy locked eyes with me, understanding flickering across her face. “You and Connor were friends. Oh, I’m so sorry, Evan! The past few days must have been terrible for you!”

 

     “Yeah, it was kind of hard for me.” I wasn’t lying, the past few days had been a rocky ride. Everything I had once knew seemed to be wrong now. Mrs Murphy listened to me and gave me her undivided attention, which felt kind of odd to have an adult give me their undivided attention. This was new to me, and I could feel my risk of saying something stupid soar. “Connor and I were _close_.”

 

     “I didn’t know he had many friends, to be honest.” Mrs Murphy’s voice was sad and regretful, she clearly missed her son. Mrs Murphy looked down at her hands, folding and unfolding them on the table. “He didn’t talk very much. _We_ didn’t talk very much. There just always seemed to be something large happening, something that kept us apart ever since he hit middle school.”

 

      “My mom and I were the same way.” I leaned down and tried to untie my shoes from me feet, but I couldn’t feel my feet. I touched the skin on my feet, the skin was ice cold and very clammy. I knew that I would probably get sick from being out in the rain, but I figured I’d deal with that later. “But aren’t every mother and son that way? I mean, growing up means growing away, right?”

 

     “I guess maybe you’re right.” Mrs Murphy agreed sadly, staring at my cast with an empty look in her eyes. She pulled her robe closer around her, as if she was trying to keep away a cold draft, and shivered. I couldn’t feel a cold draft, but I knew that the draft she was feeling wasn’t outside of her body, but inside her soul. “But I still wish that I had been closer to him, maybe none of this would have happened.”

 

     I didn’t respond to her words, I was too busy removing my socks and trying to see if any of my toes had fallen off. I tried to give her my attention while I checking on my feet, I didn’t want to be a bad guest. Mrs Murphy looked at my cold feet dejectedly, and then stood up abruptly from the table. I followed her movement with my eyes, and I wondered in the back of my mind what she was doing.

 

     “Why don’t I take you to Connor’s room so I can get you some clothes, huh?” Mrs Murphy spoke as if speaking to a reluctant four-year-old, which I suppose I might have looked like. I nodded, trying to not tilt my head too much in the gesture, lest my nose started bleeding again. I really didn’t want to leave a trail of blood in a house this nice.

 

     Mrs Murphy let me set down my clothes that I had already taken off onto the cold, tile kitchen floor and I shrugged off my backpack and left it there, too. My feet were completely bare, and I slowly stood up. I was thankful that my legs were even holding myself up at this point in time, I was still cold and wet. I was surprised at how resilient my body was, I thought for sure after the walk and the rain I would have fallen down. Which I had, but that was different.

 

     “I must admit, this is very strange for me, Evan,” Mrs Murphy said, playing her hands as she led me to Connor’s bedroom. We climbed a set of stairs, once again the wooden handrail was a perfect, dark wood. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet one of Connor’s friends, much less under the circumstances we’re under currently.”

 

     “Showing me his room because I need dry clothes because I walked to your home because I’m an idiot?” I smirked gently, and Mrs Murphy smiled lightly at me. She opened the door, and I was met with something much different than what I suspected.

 

     The walls, although they were painted a slightly dark grey, weren’t covered in posters. They were perfectly bare, and Connor’s bed looked like no one had ever used it, with almost brand-new sheets and comforters. There were no remnants of Connor Murphy in his bedroom, and if I hadn’t known better I would have said that this was just a guest bedroom. I took a tentative step into the bedroom after Mrs Murphy, not sure if I should be crossing into this space.

    

     “His clothes are here.” Mrs Murphy drifted over to a closet, and she opened up the door to reveal many shades of black, grey and dark blue clothing. Everything was either folder perfectly or hung up with immense care. “He didn’t care much for personalization of his room, he almost never spent time here, anyways.”

 

     “Where did he spend time?” I asked, taking a pair of dark grey pants and a black t-shirt from a perfectly folded pile on the left side of the closet. I figured that if I was going to wear Connor’s clothes, I might as well freak him out in the process by taking clothes that looked like things he usually wore. Or I could just cop out and tell Mrs Murphy I had clothes, and risk hurting her feelings.

 

     “I don’t know, really.” Mrs Murphy sighed sadly. Her whole demeanor changed from upbeat to broken. Her hands gripped the sides of her robe, and her shoulders dropped. “He never told Larry or I. He just came and went as he pleased, but I didn’t want to say something to him and ruin his fun, teenage years are supposed to be spent out of the house having fun, right?”

 

      “You didn’t try to stop him from leaving the house whenever he wanted to?” I was astonished, and Mrs Murphy’s body caved in itself as she tried to make herself look smaller. Even my mom would have tried to stop me from doing something stupid, even if she wouldn’t be able to stop me she could discourage it. “You didn’t stop him from his self-destruction?”

 

     “When you say it like that, it makes me sound like a horrible mother.” Mrs Murphy laughed bitterly, running a hand through her hair. She was nervous, I realized. She felt like she was finally confessing her sins, to the one person who might understand: the kid who was Connor’s friend. “I didn’t stop him from doing things at a young age. I knew that if he wanted to do something, he’d do it. If he didn’t want to do something, he wouldn’t. It was as simple as that.”

 

     “Thank you for the clothes.” I said, not sure what else to say. Mrs Murphy laughed and threw her back against the wall, as if she found the entire situation we were in hilarious. I couldn’t relate, but I felt more fear pool in my stomach.

 

    “Oh, Evan, what are we doing here?” She asked, laughing and covering her face with her hands. I could tell by the way that her shoulders were bobbing up and down that she was close to crying, from an emotion acute to stress or maybe guilt. “My son killed himself, and here I am, confessing my sins to his friend – a friend I didn’t know he had.”

 

     “Connor always had this effect on people.” I shrugged, and Mrs Murphy looked at me. Tears glittered in her eyes, and she left her hands at her collarbone, not moving them down even an inch. “He always had a way to bring out the worst and best in people. In that order.”

 

      “Where’s my best?” Mrs Murphy inquired, looking up to the ceiling. I didn’t know if she was talking to God, or Connor’s ghost, but she seemed calm down after asking the question. “Because I haven’t found it yet, Evan. Everything I seem to try to do to bring my family closer to me just pushes them away. My daughter won’t talk to me, my husband is cheating. What now? What can I do now?”

      “Try harder.” My voice was almost rude, and Mrs Murphy looked over at me, shock on her face. I didn’t meet her eyes, feeling as though I was confessing my emotions to my own mother. “Don’t take no for an answer, you need to just do everything in your power to make things better in your life. Don’t allow happiness to come to you, go out there and hunt it down. Right now.”

 

     “You sound like you know what you’re talk about.” Mrs Murphy’s hair was messed up, and her face showed all of the pain and sorrow she had been through. Yet, here she was, openly showing off her scars to a teenage kid she didn’t even know. It made me wonder how much she’d had to hide from the world. “I think you have a point. Evan, do you know the _real_ reason that Connor killed himself? No, better question, do you _want_ to know why Connor killed himself?”

 

     “He never told me.” I looked down at my hands, the open, bloody, red skin resembled the skin of my heart right now.  I felt like I’d been beaten and burned by Connor so much over the past few days, so why wouldn’t there be another secret between us?

 

     “He never told anyone anything, honey.” Mrs Murphy laid a hand on my shoulder, giving me a tense smile. “Not even in death.”

 

      Mrs Murphy then turned to the door of Connor’s room and walked away without warning. She closed the door behind her, expecting me to get dressed in Connor’s clothes in his room while she was gone. I hoped that she had gone back to the kitchen, I didn’t want the mission to be a complete failure because I had gotten caught. I didn’t know if someone between Zoe, Alana and Jared was playing lookout, but I hoped that someone was.

 

      Without another moment of hesitation, I threw off my soaked shirt. I set my shirt onto the floor and quickly pulled Connor’s shirt over my head. It felt weird to know that I was wearing clothes that belonged to a dead kid, but the shirt was warm and not wet, so I wasn’t going to complain. The cotton of the shirt was very soft, like it had been washed a million times. I wondered if I had just put on Connor’s favorite shirt without knowing it.

 

      I took off my jeans, and somehow (I suspect magic) my underwear was dry. I didn’t understand how or why, but I wasn’t going to complain. I pulled on Connor’s old pants, they were slightly too long for me. The shirt was also a bit too long, and slightly baggy. I always knew that Connor was taller than me, but I guess that I hadn’t really realized it too much until I had put on his clothes.

 

      My face heated up when I realized just how gay everything I was doing right now. I was wearing Connor’s clothes, in his room and talking to his mom. All that was missing was me telling Mrs Murphy that I was dating his son (which I wasn’t) and it would be exactly like some kind of weird date. No, date was a bad word. Confession was the word I was looking for, maybe?

 

     I pushed the thought out of my head and stepped out of the room once I was dressed. The hallway had a long, full length mirror at the end of it, allowing me to see myself. Connor’s clothes were larger on me than I had thought they would be, and I looked kind of weird dressed in such dark colors, they were a very far cry from my usual blue and white. All in all, I was just happy to be not wearing cold, wet clothes. I hugged myself and walked back to the kitchen.

 

     I held my soaked shirt and jeans in my hand, and I walked back to the direction that I wondered how Mrs Murphy would react seeing her son’s ‘friend’ in his old clothes. I didn’t want to – couldn’t – admit to her that we hadn’t really been friends. I sure as heck wasn’t going to tell her about the whole ‘Connor is now my Squip thing’. I just couldn’t do that to her, not without some more answers.

 

     I found my way back to the kitchen, where I saw Mrs Murphy sitting down at the table in the same place that she was sitting in before. However, now there were two glasses of water that were on the table, one in front of her and one in front of the chair that I had been sitting in before. I was touched at how considerate she was being, but I wondered in the back of head what the catch was. I had learned that there was usually a catch to someone being as nice as Mrs Murphy was being.

 

     “Hello, again.” I smiled, hoping that my smile hadn’t come across as awkward. Because I felt like it had come across that way, just like all of my social interactions. Mrs Murphy looked up from her hands on the table and saw me. Her eyes got big when she saw the clothes I was wearing now, and I wished that I had told her about the dry clothes I had brought with me. It must be hard on her to see her son’s friend wearing her son’s clothes.

 

     “Do they fit okay?” Mrs Murphy sounded like she really cared. I nodded and pursed my lips, I didn’t trust myself to speak and say something dumb. I slipped into the chair that I had been sitting in before. “They look pretty good on you. Keep the outfit, I insist.”

 

     “Are you sure?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. I didn’t want to impose, and I felt like the whole ‘I’m going to be too nice to say yes’ trope needed to be played on at least once. “I mean, I don’t want to impose. They belonged to Connor, I don’t want to take away anything you have to remember him by.”

 

     “What am I supposed to do with all of his old clothes?” Mrs Murphy contemplated, though part of me wondered if she was talking to me or just to herself. She pushed a few stray strands of hair out of her face, as she bit her lip. “I mean, I don’t know how long I should keep them before it becomes obsessive. Or how early I can give them away, and who really wants to wear clothes that belonged to a kid who killed himself?”

 

     “Me, apparently.” I muttered, and Mrs Murphy smiled slightly at my attempt at a joke. I placed my hands on the table, knowing that now was not the time to let my nervous tics come out. I angled my cast so that Mrs Murphy wouldn’t be able to see Connor’s name. “I guess that we’re both a little messed up, huh?”

 

     “Connor would always make fun of me for my timing.” Mrs Murphy said, but there was no warmth in her voice as she recalled the deeds of her dead son. She furrowed her brow as if she was confused as to why she was talking about Connor. “He said that I would show up late for my own funeral, and then Zoe would agree with him. He also said that he doubted that his own birth was planned, but that joke never sat well with his father. Larry didn’t like anything Connor did.”

 

     “My dad left when I was little.” I wrung my hands and shut my mouth quickly, not sure where the statement I had just made had come from. I never talked about my dad, much less to people who I had just met. Somehow, talking about him felt right in this moment. “He left my mom and I, and moved away and got married again. He had new kids now, and they take up most of his time. I don’t even think he knows I exist anymore.”

 

     “That’s his loss.” Mrs Murphy moved her left hand to cover my hands, and I looked at her in the eyes. She looked like she was trying to figure me out, as though I was a puzzle to solve. “Evan, you seem like a nice young man. A nice young man who came to Connor’s home, my home, for a reason. A reason that has not yet been stated.”

 

     “I guess I just missed him.” I lied, not meeting Mrs Murphy’s eyes. There was something about lying to a grieving mother that made it seem needed yet so sinful. “I mean, we didn’t really talk too much in school – mostly just in the computer lab during lunch. But I just miss him, it wasn’t fair that I didn’t get to say goodbye. I felt like I needed to pay my respects, and this was the only way to do so.”

 

     “Nothing Connor ever did was fair to anyone else, Evan.” Mrs Murphy sounded almost angry. “He did the things he wanted to do, without thinking of how it would affect other people. And, ultimately, it was his downfall. It’s just so sad, he had so much promise. So many abilities to succeed. Unlike his father, he didn’t take those opportunities.”

 

     “You husband is a very successful man.” I said, nodding. Mrs Murphy snorted and rolled her eyes, disgust clearly flickering across her face. “He has done so much, he’s help SquipTech with so many advances. He was the one who was able to work out the kinks of the Squip’s user interface and bring it from 5.2 to 6, right?”

 

     “Yeah, that was Larry for you.” Mrs Murphy’s anger only multiplied when she said Larry’s name. “He never stopped. He always believed that everything he did could be better, he always wanted the upgrade. He never thought about the cost of the upgrade, just that everything in his life changed because of it.”

 

     “I’m guessing you’re not talking about software upgrades?” I looked at Mrs Murphy levelly. Mrs Murphy shook her head and looked away, a sad and resentful smile playing on her lips.

 

     “No, not software upgrades.” Mrs Murphy looked back at me. “Upgrades of people, mostly. I remember a few years ago when he tried to leave SquipTech – it was taking a huge risk that I didn’t support, I may add – because he heard that someone else was offering more money at a smaller, likely to go under company. He was just never happy, that man.”

 

     “Happiness is relative, I’ve learned that.” I gazed at the ceiling, listening to the muffled sound of thunder outside. I was impressed that the walls were so soundproofed that I couldn’t hear the rain. “I mean, happiness is just an emotion, right? So, why can’t some people just not feel it, like some people can’t feel embarrassment?”

 

     “I don’t think Murphy men feel happiness.” Mrs Murphy spoke as if she were telling me the secret to the universe. She moved her hand off of mine, and she ran both her hands through her hair. “I think that’s why so many bad things happen to our family. I mean, everyone just sees the big house, the nice cars but they never see the pain. And, oh, there’re so many painful things.”

 

     “Like what?” My voice was innocent, and the innocence made me sound like I was a grade-schooler again. Mrs Murphy was struck by the morality in my voice and sighed heavily before choosing the words she wanted to speak.

 

     “Connor was very sick when he was young.” Mrs Murphy put her head in her hands, looking like she was only a few seconds from falling apart. “This was right after Zoe was born, and it was worse than Hell. I had to keep them apart, imagine taking care of a sick one year old and a two-month-old at the same time. Connor soon had to go the hospital for a few days, he slipped into a coma. I don’t know how, but he pulled through.”

 

    “Did you ever tell him about this?” I asked, feeling as though I had found out something that might lead to the reason that Connor killed himself. I mean, your mother keeping a huge secret about your childhood from you? That would be enough to send almost anyone over the edge.

 

     “I told him, yes.” Mrs Murphy nodded, and I could hear the sound of my theory dying in my mind. “He knew at a very young age that he was very sick. Maybe that was my mistake, the one that everything fall apart. It drove him away from Zoe, I think. He was worried he’d get her sick. I just wish that could go back and change everything.”

 

     “What was the sickness?” I didn’t think before the words came out of my mouth, and Mrs Murphy cringed at my question. I immediately wished that I could take back my words and I regretted speaking in the first place.

 

     “Cystic fibrosis.” Mrs Murphy spoke the words of her son’s disease like they were the reason that the world was so screwed up. “He inherited the gene from both Larry and I, and he had a one in four chance of developing symptoms of cystic fibrosis. He developed the symptoms. However, the problem snowballed when he also got asthma, and soon the doctors were almost convinced he’d die. But, somehow, he didn’t.”

 

     “How is he so healthy now?” I was astonished. From what I knew about Connor he didn’t have any trouble breathing or running or anything. “How does one just recover from something that severe? You can’t just walk away from that without a few cuts and scrapes.”

 

     “Larry was able to pull a lot of strings and get Connor an experimental treatment.” Mrs Murphy studied the ceiling, memorizing the flawless, white surface. “Connor pulled through, and a year after the treatment he was a completely different kid. He could run, and laugh. It was like he was never sick in the first place. I know I should have been – should be – happy about it, but it was always unsettling to me.”

 

     “How?” I wondered. I knew that if someone in my family was sick and was able to get better, I would never feel bad or regret it. There had to be a reason that Mrs Murphy felt that way.

 

     “He just. . .” Mrs Murphy trailed off, biting her lip and leaning closer to me. She leaned around the glasses of water that were on the table, and she pressed her chest on the wooden surface of the table with ease. “He didn’t seem like my son. I know it’s crazy, but I just thought ‘this cannot be my son’ after I held him after the treatment. But he was the same, so I was just being crazy.”

 

     “I guess you must have just been not used to seeing him healthy.” I guessed, trying to rationalize what Mrs Murphy had just said. But, really, the wheels in my head were turning. Was the treatment the reason why Connor was a person and a Squip? Was the ability to have a Squip in your head something that is linked to childhood illness? How does that explain me?

 

     “I just always worried that maybe the treatment and sickness was why he was so depressed.” Mrs Murphy sounded regretful and in pain. This was hard for her to admit, and I could see the toll it was taking on her. “Maybe if hadn’t have gotten sick, he wouldn’t have been so mentally ill. Maybe he’d be alive right now. But it wasn’t like I could have saved him from getting sick, cystic fibrosis isn’t something you catch, it is genetic.”

 

      “You can’t keep blaming yourself for something you couldn’t control.” My voice was assertive, wishing I could say the same words to my mom about my dad. “It isn’t your fault, and it isn’t Connor’s fault either. We will never know why Connor was so depressed, but blaming ourselves isn’t going to help anything.”

 

     “I think you’re right.” Mrs Murphy sounded almost relieved that someone had said something normal. Mrs Murphy smiled at me, and I felt more at home with her than I ever had with my own mother. Maybe because I felt like there were really no secrets between Mrs Murphy and I. Well, other than the big secret.

 

     “He never let his sickness show.” I said, looking at Mrs Murphy. Confusion flashed across her face for a second, and then the light of understanding lit up in her eyes. “I never would have guessed he was ever so ill as a child. He never let anything like that show, he always kept it to himself.”

 

     “To this day I don’t understand how Larry was able to get that experimental treatment for Connor.” Mrs Murphy admitted, lacing her fingers together and moving away from me. “I mean, I know we have money. Heck, when I told him I wanted a second kid he laughed and said that I didn’t have to tell him, it wasn’t like we had to worry about college or anything else. But money can only get people so far, even these days.”

 

     “SquipTech, maybe?” I speculated. I was now speculating on how Mr Murphy had gotten the experimental treatment for Connor’s illness I had never heard of. It was like Mrs Murphy and I were talking about conspiracy theories, only minus the aliens. “I mean, that company has a lot of pull. Who’s to say it wasn’t both his position and the money? Power can get people almost anything.”

 

     “He’s just a coder, though.” Mrs Murphy’s voice told me that she had never told anyone about her doubts about her husband before. She’d though about it, yes. Told anyone, no. “Yeah, he’s a very important coder – one of the best – but still just a coder. He’s not the CEO, but he gets paid like he is.”

 

     “Maybe there’s nothing to speculate about.” I shrugged, feeling off for thinking so bad about Mr Murphy. I had my doubts from when Zoe and Connor talked for the first time since Connor’s suicide, but I was going to give even Larry Murphy the benefit of the doubt. “Maybe he got the treatment without pulling any strings. Not everything is a huge conspiracy.”

 

     “I know that not everything is a conspiracy.” Mrs Murphy sounded offended. I sunk back, I wasn’t trying to offend her. I had just tried to think of the most logical thing that came to mind, and that was it. “But I just worry some days that the man I married all those years ago isn’t the same man who I’m married to now.”

 

    “I guess people change in marriages.” I thought back to my mom after Dad left. She would always cry, and yell about him when she thought I couldn’t hear her harsh words. But I was wide awake, and I could hear every syllable. Once upon a time, she loved him. And he loved her. “Sometimes for the worst.”

 

     “He’s cheating.” Mrs Murphy scoffed, digging her nails into the backs of her hands while they were folded. I worried that she might draw blood, but I said nothing. I knew that sometimes you have to bleed to feel emotions, and this was one of those times. “Right now, actually. I don’t know if he knows that I know, but I don’t care. He can keep her, I’m going to just pick up the pieces Connor left behind by myself anyways.”

 

     Silence fell over us, for the first time in our conversation. I tried to think back to when my dad left, and I couldn’t remember him ever cheating. It doesn’t mean he ever did it, but I couldn’t relate to Mrs Murphy’s pain. I knew that cheating was wrong, my mom had made sure I had a good set of morals. She never told to not lie, though. Maybe that explains me.

 

     “I just worry about Zoe, most of all.” Mrs Murphy fretted, digging her nails into her skin deeper. “She lost her brother. Yes, Connor wasn’t very nice to her. Far from it, actually, but still. She must know about Larry’s cheating, and she feels like she can’t even talk to me. She’s at a friend’s house tonight, Alana, so I hope that she’s dealing. But, when her friends are gone, she’s all alone.”

 

     “I think she’s dealing pretty well.” I wasn’t trying to lie, but I was doubting my words. Zoe was pushing herself into finding out concrete facts of her father’s wrongdoing. Suddenly, her reasons and motivations became perfectly clear: Zoe wasn’t doing this for Connor, she was doing this for herself.

 

     “I hope.” Mrs Murphy said, then chuckled. She removed her nails from her skin, revealing bloodied skin and nails. “Sometimes, when Zoe and Connor were younger, people would think that they were twins. They acted like it, they even liked opposite things. They were both loud and opinionated. They would never shut up when they thought something was wrong, they didn’t inherit Larry’s moral system for sure.”

 

     “I always wanted a sibling when I was younger.” I reminisced quietly, thinking back to my younger years when all I wanted was a friend who never had to leave our playdates. “But, my mom and dad didn’t want to have another kid. I guess one screw-up was enough for them.”

 

     “You’re not a screw-up, Evan.” Mrs Murphy’s voice was firm and loud. It sounded so much unlike her, it was like she had been possessed by some kind of pushy, nice spirit. “You’re a sweet boy, and I feel very lucky to have met you. Connor was lucky to have had such a great friend.”

 

      “Thank you.” I said, getting flashbacks to when I had told Connor that my mom was trying to ‘fix’ me with therapy and drugs. Maybe Mrs Murphy was right about Connor inheriting her moral values. “That means a lot, Mrs Murphy.”

 

     “Oh, please, call me Cynthia.” Cynthia smiled, revealing her perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. I smiled back at her, but not as wide and my mouth almost didn’t tug on the left side. “We’re friends now, Evan. As strange as it might be to be friends with you dead friend’s mom, I hope you know that you can come to me whenever you need to. I don’t get out very much.”

 

     “Don’t you have other mom friends?” I cocked my head to the side, I thought that all moms had mom friends. My mom had had mom friends before Dad left, but now she worked so much so she didn’t have a social life. “I mean, all moms have mom friends, right?”

 

     “I don’t have any female friends who are my age and have kids, no.” Cynthia laughed lightly and chose her words so that she wouldn’t have to say ‘mom friends’. I guess it made her feel old or something. “The women I could be friends with who are a lot like me are washed out and shallow, they brag about their families endlessly, yet they never are a part of any family activity.”

 

      “So, they’re the stereotypical soccer moms?” I smirked, finding something about calling Cynthia’s would-be friends ‘soccer moms’ funny. “My mom was never that way. She is always either working or going to school, sometimes I wonder when she has time to sleep or study.”

 

     “Your mother sounds like a very driven woman.” Cynthia sounded impressed. I smiled awkwardly at Cynthia’s tone and nodded. I didn’t know what else to do, really.

 

     “She’s a nurse, but she’s studying law.” I studied the wooden table I was sitting at. The grain was beautiful wood, it was dark and curved into almost perfect ovals. It was almost like it was too perfect to be from a real tree. “She’s really committed to trying to be everything. But, that means that sometimes she can’t commit herself to anything.”

 

     “Larry did the same thing after Connor was sick.” Cynthia sympathized, it was nice how she was able to know exactly what I was going through. Not even Dr North was this good. “He’d constantly spend time away from the family. He’d sometimes sleep over at work. He wasn’t cheating back then, I know that for sure. But he was trying to work and support the family and be a dad at the same time.”

 

      “He was trying to give his all to everything, but all he was really doing was driving himself crazy and hurting the people who loved him.” I finished for Cynthia. I knew exactly how it felt, it was how Dad was right before he left. It was how my mom constantly acted. “And when you tried to confront him, you were met with resistance because he was too blind to see the damage he had caused. The damage he was causing.”

 

     “Maybe I should take you in as my new son.” Cynthia smirked, and I gave her a weak smile in return. She reached for my hand again, wiping a little drop of blood on my skin. I didn’t mind, I was sure that there was blood on the clothes I had taken off just a little while ago. “I think that it would make both our lives different, changed for the better.”

 

     “We’ll at least be changed for good, can’t say for the better.” I moved my thumb so that it would be rubbing against Cynthia’s pinkie. I wished that it was this way with my own mother, but I was happy to at least know that Cynthia cared for me to talk to me like this.

 

      “So, tell me, did coming here solve your need to learn things about Connor?” Cynthia asked, raising an eyebrow. I thought about it for a second, letting my thoughts wander for a second before Cynthia called them back to her. “Because, if you want, I can let you take another look around his room. I figure that since you’re a teenager you might know where he’d hide things.”

 

     “That would be helpful, actually.” I nodded, eager to find out anything I possibly could from Connor’s bedroom. It looked pretty bare, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have things in his closet or under his mattress. Anything that could lead to some answers to what he thought his life was like would help both Cynthia and I. “I think I might be able to find something, yeah.”

 

     “Just promise me you’ll tell me if you find anything, okay?” Cynthia begged lightly, but I could see that in her eyes she was begging from the bottom of her heart. She didn’t know her son very well, but she wanted to know him, through any means possible. “He didn’t leave behind much, and I want to know if there’s anything that I can salvage for the future.”

 

      Without saying anything else, Cynthia stood up and held my hand and pulled me to my feet. I stood up, pressing my bare feet on the cold tile floor. The perfect floors were ice cold on my feet, but I didn’t mind. I was hoping that I could scare Connor back into existence if I could go through his stuff, and I was almost fully sure it could work.

 

      Cynthia and I walked hand in hand (which was slightly awkward for both of us, I think, but we needed someone to understand our pain so badly that it didn’t matter anymore. We were too messed up to care) to Connor’s bedroom. Cynthia stopped and opened Connor’s door, but didn’t step into the room. It was like she knew that this wasn’t her battle to fight. Because, at the end of the day, we were different people from different families who had different reasons for fighting.

 

     “I had you promise to tell me what you find.” Cynthia shrugged, not thinking anything about not going inside of Connor’s room with me. “If you find anything, I trust you’ll show me. But I also know how teenagers can get about keeping secrets.”

 

      “Once last thing, Cynthia.” I said, biting my lip gently as I tried to find a way to phrase the words I wanted to say to her. “Why isn’t your Squip out? You haven’t had them out during our entire conversation, it just seemed odd, since we live in a Squip culture.”

 

     “I had my Squip taken out of my head about a year ago now.” Cynthia crossed her arms over her chest subconsciously, her courage faltering for a second. “I found out that Larry was using it to track me. He’s always had trust issues, which is ironic because. . . Well, you know. But I got rid of my Squip, Gloria, a long time ago now.”

 

     “I didn’t know people got rid of their Squips anymore.” I was astonished, I hadn’t ever met someone who had had their Squip removed. “I thought that no one did that anymore. I mean, when Squips first came out as illegal technology people would turn then off and take them out, but not these days. Nowadays Squips are awesome, friendly and essential to life.”

 

     “The pawns are always the nicest players on the gameboard because they don’t understand that they’re being played.” Cynthia uncrossed her arms from over her chest and nodded to Connor’s open door. I understood that meant I was dismissed, but I couldn’t help but think that Cynthia wasn’t just being paranoid.

 

     There was a sneaking suspicion that she was right about Squips and the true purpose that the technology served, being inside of almost every single person on the planet. Why wouldn’t someone who wanted total control pass off their means of total control as something nice, sweet, friendly and essential to a happy life?

 

     I turned away from Cynthia and stepped into Connor’s room, once again shocked at the bare walls and the lack of personal items. Part of me wondered if things had been changed since his suicide, but the other part of me doubted that. Cynthia couldn’t bring herself to be in this room for more than a few minutes, that wasn’t enough time to clear the room of personal items from any person.

 

      I walked over to Connor’s bed just as Cynthia closed the door behind me. I knew right away that under the mattress was the best hiding spot that most teenagers – or just people in general – could think to hide things. I leaned down next to Connor’s bed and lifted up the left side of the queen-sized mattress and stuck my hand under the mattress, feeling for anything that might have been hidden there by Connor.

 

      My hand slipped over something smooth, it felt like the cover of a hardcover book that one would find at a library. I tightened my hand around the book and pulled it out from under Connor’s mattress. I was half expecting something really, really bad. But the other part of me knew that I was talking about _Connor Murphy_ here, so it might just be a Hot Topic magazine hidden inside a book that he had hid from his family.

 

      With the object in my hands, I saw that I was wrong about every guess I had made. It was an unlabeled, black book without any markings. _Diary_ was the word that came to mind as I ran my fingers over the tome. Here I was, holding Connor Murphy’s diary. I had the key to understanding who Connor was once upon a time, and it was no doubt handwritten so there were no digital traces of it on anyone’s computer or PC.

 

     Guilt pooled in my stomach for a second as I realized that I had gone through Connor’s stuff and I had thought about snooping around in his personal life without Connor’s permission. It would have been one thing if Connor was really dead and gone, but he (some part or some version of him) was still in my head and very much alive. Or at least very much conscious.

 

    And he should choose whether or not his personal, intimate record of his life should be given to his mother. I know that I wouldn’t want my mom looking through any diary I had (not that I have a diary, I’m not that kind of person) or the letters I write to myself.

 

     I threw the book from hand to hand lightly for a second. I decided to set the book down and try to find anything else under Connor’s mattress again, then I could come back to the diary. I lifted up the mattress again, this time allowing my eyes to see under the mattress for a few seconds before dropping the mattress down again. Nothing.

 

     I repeated the motion at each of the four corners of the bed, coming up with nothing again and again. I sighed, hoping that Connor had something else that I could show his mother other than his diary. I mean, that kid must have kept some other record of his life, right? Who doesn’t keep at least a smaller, distant record of their life tucked away inside a folder on their computer’s desktop?

 

      Walking over to the closet, I started to look for anything and everything that could point to Connor not only owning a laptop, but having one that he kept records of his life on. I figured that he would have needed one if he really was sans Squip – which he was.

 

      I tore through Connor’s clothing, trying to find something under the piles of perfectly folded and perfectly stacked shirts and pants. I kept digging, and I found Connor’s favorite hoodie. I knew that it was his hoodie because of how often I had seen him it, and how worn it was. He could have replaced the well-worn piece of clothing, but he hadn’t because he loved it. Seeing that he was sentimental about things made empathy bubble up in me. Maybe Connor and I weren’t so different after all.

 

      But, I had found no wires, nothing made of silicon. I sighed and tore apart his closet again, trying to find something to give to Mrs Murphy, because she wasn’t getting the diary until Connor approved it. But would Connor even want me to give something to his mother? They were clearly very distant from each other; would he see it as a breach of trust if I gave something to his mother that would shed some light on his personal life?

 

     All of this speculation was made worse because of the fact that I was unable to tell Mrs Murphy about the fact that her son was my Squip. Connor seemed to cause more problems in death than he ever did in life, the exact opposite of most people’s deaths these days. After death, Squips took care of debts, and soon enough everyone forgot about the dead person. Connor’s case was a far cry from what usually happened when someone died in the twenty second century.

 

     I tried to put back Connor’s clothes, but my fingers fumbled and it ended up looking worse than when I had started. I walked back over to his diary, once again running my hands over the black cover. I didn’t know what to do, I could lie to Mrs Murphy and keep Connor’s trust or I could build trust with Mrs Murphy and make Connor even more angry at me.

 

     “Why does this have to be such a hard choice?” I fretted quietly, thinking that if I just ripped out a few pages then I could give the diary to Mrs Murphy and not feel bad about it. She would think that Connor tore out the pages that were more personal. Connor would keep some parts of his personal life, Mrs Murphy would get closure, and I would gain trust from everyone.

 

     But that was what someone who had an agenda would do. That was the move of a slimy, sick, dark, manipulative person. And that wasn’t who I was, or someone who I aspired to be. No, I was going to take the diary and ask Connor about it when he showed back up, then strike some deal with Zoe so that she could say she ‘found’ it and give it to her mom. That way, everyone would win.

 

     I smiled at my problem-solving skills, proud of myself that I had thought of a good way to fix the issue that I had run into. All of those dumb team building things we did in school were put to shame, I hadn’t needed a team to think of such a good solution.

 

     I walked back over to Connor’s closet and pulled out his favorite hoodie and donned it. I knew that it was slightly too big on me – Connor preferred to wear slightly baggy hoodies – and I slipped the diary into the left pocket and zipped up the hoodie. The diary was pretty small, so it fit perfectly into the pocket without peeking out at all. I was once again proud of myself for my awesome plan.

 

     I check once again that I couldn’t see the diary in my pocket, I really didn’t need to get caught stealing any more of Connor’s stuff. I was already taking his clothes (which he would be less than happy about) and now his diary. But it was all for the mission, all to help people Connor get some answers about himself.

 

     For the first time since changing into Connor’s clothes, I wondered how Zoe, Alana and Jared were doing. Were they finding what they had come here for? Were they coming up against firewalls? Were all of the documents tangible on paper, or were they all on USB flash drives and SD cards? I worried about them for a second, before clamming myself down. I had already freaked out once today, I didn’t need to have another meltdown.

 

     I timidly opened the door to leave Connor’s room, seeing Mrs Murphy looking at her injured hands. Her head shot up when she heard the sound of me opening the door, and her eyes met mine.

 

     “I didn’t find anything.” I lied, hugging myself. I tried to look devastated, like how someone in my position should look if my friend had really killed himself. “But I got cold and took Connor’s hoodie. Is that okay?”

 

     “That’s fine, darling.” Mrs Murphy gave me a half-smile. She sighed and looked at the floor, studying in the plush carpet. “I just was hoping that you might find something. I guess I just hoped that he had left something behind that I could use to know him better. But I should have known that that wouldn’t be like him.”

 

     “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t lying now, it broke my heart to see someone so broken up over someone who they had barely known. “I guess he just didn’t want to leave anything behind. Some people are like that, they think that the world is better off without them, they don’t want any traces of them to still scar the Earth.”

 

     “I wish he had at least given someone else the choice to erase his existence.” Mrs Murphy’s voice cracked and she balled her hands into fists to keep from her emotions from running away from her. “His life belonged to himself, but his death did not. No, his death belongs to the people he left behind. I just wish I could have stopped him.”

 

     “We all wish we could have stopped him.” I muttered, closing my eyes. I wasn’t sure if what I just said was true or not, and I felt self-loathing build in my soul. Would I really have stopped him? I was closer to Zoe now, I had a Squip now. So much had changed, would I really go back and stop him?

 

      Before I could contemplate the ins and outs of how bad of a person I was, Mrs Murphy pulled me into a hug. Unlike my mom, Mrs Murphy didn’t cling onto me for dear life. Her arms wrapped around my body, and I threw my arms around her, too. Mrs Murphy rubbed her hand up and down on my back for a few seconds, and I worried that she might feel the bulge of the diary in my pocket.

 

     She didn’t notice the diary, though, thankfully. She moved away from me, a couple of tears falling down her face. She almost looked like she might laugh, as if she found something about the situation of hugging me funny.

 

     “I guess that all of those motivation quotes were right,” Mrs Murphy smiled, “Everything really does come back to you after you lose it. The universe will work everything out. I lost a son, and I hope I gained one, too.”

 

      “I hope you’re right.” I said, turning away from Mrs Murphy. She wiped away the last of her tears from her face and she walked back to the kitchen. I followed her and she handed me my backpack again, assuming that I’d want to go now.

 

     “Need a ride back home?” Mrs Murphy asked, biting her lip slightly. I shrugged my backpack back onto my shoulders, liking the familiar weight of the cloth bag on my body. “I’d be happy to bring you back to your house, really I would.”

 

      “I think I’ll be fine if I walk.” I tried to think of how to get away from Mrs Murphy and get back to Zoe, Alana and Jared without Mrs Murphy knowing what I was doing or where I was going. “I mean, it looks like the rain has died down.”

 

     Thunder clapped loudly outside, and I jumped from surprise. Mrs Murphy looked at me with one eyebrow cocked, and a hand on her hip. I smiled back at her awkwardly, not sure how to convey to her that I really didn’t want a ride. Giving me a ride would only complicate things in my life right now, and things were already complicated.

 

     “Okay, I trust your personal judgement, Evan.” Mrs Murphy caved, holding up her hands in mock surrender. I almost smiled at her attempt at making fun of letting people make their own choices, but it just reminded me of her passive parenting method of letting her children make all of the important life choices on their own.

 

     “I’ll be fine, Mrs Murphy, I promise.” I vowed, holding a hand to my heart. I thought back to Jared doing the same motion less than a dozen hours earlier. “I won’t get hit by any cars, and I won’t walk around in these wet clothes once I go back home.”

 

      My shoes were still very damp, but I forced myself to put on the damp socks and shoes that I had walked here in. I wasn’t going to show Mrs Murphy that I didn’t have any intention of going home by not putting on my shoes.

 

      “Oh, I almost forgot about your wet clothes from before!” Mrs Murphy ran to get something from a corner of the kitchen. As soon as she was gone, I took off my backpack and took Connor’s diary and wrapped it in the plastic bag that also held the chocolate chips I had brought. I shoved the bag back into my backpack before Mrs Murphy returned again.

 

      Mrs Murphy came back with another plastic bag – this one from Kohl’s – that she wanted me to put my wet clothes into. She stuffed the wet clothing into the bag while she chatted happily about seeing me off. I nodded along and put the plastic bag into my backpack and shrugged my backpack right back onto my shoulders.

 

     “Thank you, Mrs Murphy.” I smiled, and I walked back to the door. Mrs Murphy followed me to the door, like a mom usually would when their kid or their kid’s friend leaves their house. I walked out a few feet into the lawn, I was surprised that there wasn’t any sidewalk that lead from the front door to the sidewalk that everyone used. “I’ll be sure to get home safe, no need to worry about me.”

 

     “Take care of yourself, Evan.” Mrs Murphy said before closing the door and leaving me out in the rain. I kept walking until I came across a patch of almost pure darkness, and I doubled back and walked back to the Murphy home again. I was worried that Mr Murphy might come home soon, but I knew that Zoe would take care of that if it happened.

 

     The rain was slowly soaking into Connor’s clothing, but it wasn’t falling as hard as it was before. I walked back over to the overhang that Zoe and Alana had been hiding in when I first showed up, and I pressed myself up against the house to minimize the risk of anyone seeing me. I really didn’t want to be spotted by Mrs Murphy. My breathing was getting quicker, and I knew that I had made a big mistake. How was I supposed to get back inside? Was Zoe going to notice I was outside? Would she care?

 

     “Connor, I need you.” I breathed, feeling my shoulders fall. Here I was, thinking I could go one without him, but I needed him again. The blow to my self-esteem was short lived, because within a second a flash of grey light could be seen on my shoulder.

 

     “Heck yeah you need me, Hansen.” Connor agreed, frowning slightly. My eyes got big when I saw him, my hopes soaring again. “Looks like you need a way to break into my house because you walked out of it, like an idiot.”

 

     “That’s true, I did just do everything you just said.” I couldn’t put together a competent sentence, and Connor rolled his eyes at my attempt. “Connor, I just talked to your mother. And I found something in your room and so much has-“

 

    “You’re wearing my clothes.” Connor blurted out in a displeased voice, and he looked at my – his – clothing with disgust. “Why are you wearing my clothes? You do know Jared will never let you heard the end of this, right? He’s going to call us lovers until the day we both die now.”

 

     “I know, but Connor, I found your old diary.” I spoke with urgency. Connor needed to know so that we could be truthful with each other, and so we can go back to Zoe, Alana and Jared and help them with the mission I had left them in the middle of. “I have it in my bag. I haven’t read it, and I want to know what we should do with it.”

 

      “What are you planning on doing with it?” Connor’s voice was shaking, his eyes wide with fear. I had never seen fear like that in the eyes of Connor Murphy before. “Expose it to the world? Give it to my family and have them tear it apart looking for answers as to why I killed myself? Read it yourself and then judge me endlessly?”

 

     “No, I was going to ask you what you want me to do with it.” I was telling the truth, and I almost wanted to hold Connor’s hand and reassure him that I wasn’t going to hurt him in any way. “I mean, I don’t think I really want it. But I just think you should choose what should happen to the things you leave behind.”

 

      “So, whatever I say you’ll do?” Connor raised an eyebrow, almost as if he couldn’t believe that I was going to be so trusting of him. But, the way that I saw it was that we needed to show each other some trust right about now. “No complaining, no reasoning, you’ll do it?”

 

     “Yeah, whatever you think should be done I’ll do.” I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest. “I mean, this is _your_ life, I’m going to do whatever you want me to do with the diary. Now is the time to show my trust in you, not the time to make choices for you without asking for your permission.”

 

     “I actually am going to trust you with this, Hansen.” Connor sounded astonished that he was trusting me, almost like he wasn’t sure why he was being so nice and trusting. “Whatever you think we should do with the journal – it’s _not_ a diary – is what will happen to it.”

 

     I reached back and took my backpack off of my back, and I zipped it open. I untied the bag that the diary – sorry, _journal_ – was in, and I took the dry, black book out and held it in my hands. Connor looked at his journal with fear and weariness in his eyes. He didn’t know what to think, but I knew exactly what I was going to do. I took the journal and knew that it was more than just a journal. No, this object was going to show the kind of trust I have for Connor, the kind of trust I hope to gain in return.

 

     I reared my arm back and threw the journal into the lawn as far as I could. Darkness cloaked the book as it fell, and I heard Connor gasp lightly in my ear. I knew that I had just done something that some might call stupid, and I still wasn’t sure how Connor would react. But I wasn’t going to take back what my gesture had meant.

 

     “It doesn’t matter who you were.” I didn’t tear my eyes away from the lawn, still searching for where the journal had landed. “What matters is who you choose to be now. And, you know what, I think that now is the time that I start to accept you for who you are and not who you were. Now is the time that we only tell each other the truth.”

 

     The rain fell harder now, but I was perfectly dry under the overhang. The sound of the rain hitting the sidewalk, the Murphy house and the grass was a constant background noise. I shifted my weight and balled my clammy hands into fists, it was still cold out even if I wasn’t soaking wet. I hoped that I’d go somewhere warm and not in the rain soon, or else I’d get _sick_ sick.

 

     “When I was a little kid, I got ahold of the X Files on Netflix.” Connor gazed off to the lawn, his voice sounded like it was a million miles away. “One of the catch phrases they used was ‘trust no one’. And I lived by that for years, even while my family was falling apart. I never deviated from those words, they were almost my own prayer to myself.”

 

      “But?” I baited, waiting for the turning point in the story when things went from depressing to happy.

 

      “Maybe the new words to live by are ‘the truth is out there’.” Connor looked up to me, and I felt like I had just won the lottery. Connor Murphy and I were friends now, and we were going to find out what had happened to him, and what he really was.

 

     “The truth is out there, and were going to find it.” I smiled, feeling loyalty and pride swell in my chest.

 

      The rain around us picked up again, but I wasn’t worried about it. I had Connor Murphy at my side, now and forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The X Files reference at the end was very intentional, also (in case you missed it) this story is set in the 22nd century, so the characters are about 100 years ahead of us, technology wise.  
> Here's a little world building that I alluded to:  
> -There are no longer any 3rd world countries, most humans (99.9%) live with a good standard of living  
> -There is no world government, but many people push for it  
> -Squips are not treated like people under laws, they are treated as property  
> -The world population is kept to 5 billion all of the time, there is only a small buffer for 1,000 over or 1,000 under  
> -The USA is still a country, but there was a civil war that tore it apart in the year 2068 before it was put back together in 2079  
> -WWIII has happened, WWIV is yet to come


	8. So Important/So Insignificant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor and Evan talk for a while before meeting back up with Jared, Alana and Zoe again to look through Mr Murphy's study.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a slight suicide warning for this chapter, but other than that and a couple of curse words, this chapter is pretty family-friendly. Well, as family friendly as a musical about a teenage kid using the death of another teenage kid to get the girl he's in love with, while also ruining his own life in the process.  
> Haha, gotta love Dear Evan Hansen, don't you?  
> Enjoy!

“Evan, what did you and my mother talk about?”

 

     I looked at Connor, his voice breaking the silence that had fallen over us. I looked at Connor, worried that he was going to be mad at me if I told him that his mother and I had talked about him for most of our conversation. There was talk about me, about Mr Murphy for a while. But it mostly about Connor and his childhood.

 

    “Um, well, it was mostly you, to be honest.” I cringed and closed my eyes, ready to have Connor say something about how creepy that was. I opened my left eye to see him sitting on my left shoulder, but he wasn’t saying anything in response. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

 

     “So, I’m guessing you know all about everything I don’t tell people.” Connor’s voice sounded dark, as if he was plotting to make sure his mother would never speak again. “Like about my stunted start in childhood? The sickness I had?”

 

     “Yeah, she told me all about that.” I admitted, forcing my eyes open. I didn’t want to show fear, it wasn’t like I had done anything bad or evil when I talk to Mrs Murphy. Connor was just a conversation topic, that was it. “She was so nice, Connor. She’s really a great lady, and I’m really lucky to have met her.”

 

     “That’s the usual consensus of my mother.” Connor rolled his eyes and scoffed quietly. “She’s such a _nice_ person, such a _wonderful_ hostess. But they never look underneath that persona. She had her Squip taken out of her head because my dad was tracking her with it. You know that, right?”

 

     “She told me that, yes.” I nodded. I felt as though Connor’s last question was supposed to make me feel stupid because I didn’t know, but I knew and he was surprised at this. “She’s in a lot of pain because of a lot of things – your death being the main source of pain and sadness. It was really tough to not tell her that you’re still alive as a Squip. My Squip.”

 

     “But you didn’t tell her about me, right?” Connor raised an eyebrow at me. Fear tinged his voice, but I ignored it. “I mean, you would never betray me like that, and I know that. But you really didn’t tell her, right? Not even as a joke?”

 

     “No, she doesn’t know.” I bit my lip, wondering why it was so important to Connor that his mother be kept completely in the dark. “Why does it matter so much? I mean, I get it, no one really knows why you’re a Squip so it’d be bad to tell her without any answers, but why is this so important to you? I just don’t get it.”

 

    “Hansen, how did you miss it?” Connor let out an exasperated laugh, the sound of the laugh was wrong. It made my skin crawl, and I wondered how tightly wound Connor really was. “If we find out something about me is illegal in one way or another, she can’t know about it. She’s innocent, and she needs to stay that way. I may not have always agreed with my mom or her messed up morals, but I still love her. She’s family.”

 

     “So, you just want to make sure she’s innocent?” I made a face and shook my head. “You don’t care about how much it would hurt her to know her son was alive as a computer program living inside of someone else’s head? How much she’d blame herself for not knowing you weren’t human?”

 

     “Her emotions have always been erratic at best.” Connor said in an emotionless voice. He crossed his legs and played with his fingers, no longer content with sitting still. “My mom would freak out, yes, but then she’d call my dad _right away_. No matter what bad things she says about that man, she can’t stop loving him. He’s all she has left at the end of the day, since her son is dead and her daughter won’t talk to her no matter how much my mom tries to talk to her.”

 

     “Don’t you think that your reasons for not telling her are kind of wrong?” I cringed again as I asked the question, but it had to be asked. “I mean, she should be able to know about her son. You were her everything once upon a time, her firstborn. She can defend herself in court, but she’ll never be able to get rid of the feeling of betrayal when she realizes her son didn’t tell her about what he is.”

 

     “I don’t think you understand how messed up my family really is.” Connor tapped his fingers rhythmically against his thighs. “My mom cares for me, yeah, but she isn’t the motherly type. She let me do what I wanted to do, she wouldn’t know how to be a good mom if someone told her how to be a good mom. Which, for the record, she bought lots of books on how to be a mom, so she should have known what she was doing.”

 

      “Well, not everyone is perfect with kids right away.” I defended Mrs Murphy weakly, crossing my feet as I leaned against the Murphy house. “My mom wasn’t perfect at first. She had to rely a lot on my dad when I was first born, she was never really motherly, but she took care of me. She didn’t do a perfect job, but she did alright.”

 

     “Your mom cares.” Connor sounded resentful again, almost as if he wished that he had had my mother instead of his own. “She signs you up for therapy, she thinks that she can help your depression, your anxiety.”

 

     “D-Depression?” I stuttered, the blood draining from my face. I swore I could hear Connor sigh in my ear, he appeared to be done with my freaking out whenever he found out about something I didn’t tell people. “I never told you about depression. Why would you assume I’m depressed? Anxious, yes. But depressed? No, not that.”

 

     “Hansen, do you really think I wouldn’t’ve found out?” Connor shook his head, facepalming elegantly. “I mean, _I’ve_ been depressed before. For a long time, actually. I know what it looks like, how it sounds. Look, if you don’t want me to tell anyone I understand. You can trust me, you know that. But, just take care of yourself, okay? If one day I’m not around, don’t do anything stupid. Promise?”

 

     “I’m not going to!” I exclaimed, waving my hands frantically in front of my chest. I uncrossed my feet before I fell on my face, and Connor floated out in front of me. He went from a foot tall to six feet, his normal height. “I wouldn’t even think about it!”

 

     “Hansen.” Connor said my name with a conviction I hadn’t heard from anyone in a long time. He looked me in my eyes and his gaze didn’t falter. It was strange to see him at full height, two inches taller than me. “Look, I’m only going to say it once so listen up: I’ve seen your memories. All of them. I know what you don’t want to tell me, and I’m going to tell you here and now that if you want to talk about it I’m here.”

 

     “I really thought it would work.” I laughed, running a hand through my hair. Connor leaned towards me and cocked his head to the side. “I mean, I climbed up a really tall tree. You know how they have apps for judging how hurt if you jump from a certain height? Well, I calculated it and the height I jumped from should have killed me.”

 

     “But it didn’t.” Connor nodded, as if talking about my suicide was the most normal thing in the world. I looked away from him and blushed, embarrassed beyond belief. “You’re still alive. So, tell me, why? I mean, I’m having trouble reading the emotions attached to these memories.”

 

      “It just felt right.” I whispered, hoping that Connor wouldn’t hear and I wouldn’t have to admit this kind of thing out loud. Couldn’t we just talk about it in my mind? That would be better for me. “I had no future, no ability to have a future. My mom would have been better off without me, and I could have done some good. Like, gotten people talking about depression and suicide? Maybe my death would have saved some else’s.”

 

     “No, that’s not the reason.” Connor shook his head. I couldn’t tell if he was just messing with me for the heck of it, or if he was just coming across as condescending to me. “There was something else. I know it, you wouldn’t end your life on that. No one would.”

 

     “Connor. . .”  I trailed off, feeling a familiar scratch in my throat. “Please don’t make me. Please, please.”

 

     “No one is making you do anything, Hansen.” Connor crossed his arms over his chest and tossed his hair. “But you’re lying to yourself. And, from what I’ve seen, you don’t care for lying to people you care about very much. So, why are you lying to yourself?”

 

     “Because I can’t!” I felt fear grip me, it was gnarling its claws into my soul, pulling me down into a sea of uncertainty. I closed my eyes to keep from seeing Connor, from seeing anything. “Don’t you understand? Just thinking about that loneliness is crushing.”

 

     “And that’s it.” Connor tapped his foot on the ground once. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him over the roar of the rain falling in the background. “So, tell me, of all the emotions that compel people to do things, why is it that the one that drove you over the edge?”

 

     “What are you, some kind of grief counselor?” I spat, my upper lip curling as tears streamed down my face. It wasn’t like me to lash out, but for some reason I was lashing out. “What would you know about how to solve mental issues? You gave into yours. How are you even qualified to help me?”

 

     “Yeah, I did give into my demons.” Connor’s voice went from comforting to dark in a second. His eyes clouded over and looked away from me. “And, trust me, it hurt. But I don’t want to see you go through what I went through.”

 

     “Right, because what you’ve gone through is so terrible.” My voice was only acid, only anger and angst. “I mean, you had it all. A mom and dad who cared, a sister, money. And what did you do? You threw it all away! What is this intervention even about, Connor?”

 

     “I just want you to understand that it’s okay to admit that you’re imperfect.” Connor spoke with anger in his voice, his whole body showed how angry he was. “I want you to know that you can admit you’re broken, that you need-”

 

     “Medication? Therapy? A way to fix how messed up I am?” I sneered, feeling the dam break inside of me. I was _done_ with people thinking they knew better than me on issues that didn’t concern them. “So, you’re just like my mom, then. You just want to fix me, take me to doctors so they can put me on medication and make you feel better about knowing me.”

 

     “I don’t want to fix you, Hansen.” Connor’s anger faded and he sounded exasperated. “You’re not some kind of TV or computer, I can’t fix you. But I can help you to get over the emotions you’ve been harboring inside of you for such a long time.”

 

     “What if I don’t want that part of me to see the light of day?” My voice lowered down to almost nothing, and I could feel something inside of me break. My tears came faster now, and my biggest fear was realized. “You really don’t want to see that part of me, Connor. No one does, please just leave me alone on this. You can’t help, I can’t even help myself.”

 

     “What are you so afraid of, Hansen?” Connor leaned towards me, crossing his arms over his chest. “What is making you hold back? Why do you fear telling me things about yourself?”

 

    “If you really saw the real me, you’d leave.” My nose was running, and tears were falling down my face and neck. I wasn’t crying in a way that was poetic; no, I was falling apart. “I’m so messed up. I can’t reach out, I can’t love things because they leave. I loved my family, and it broke. I loved life, and then I grew up and I failed in some way that no one has yet explained to me. I’m just a screw up, I don’t know why you even bother to stick around.”

 

     “I had a drug addiction.” Connor rubbed the back of his neck, and I looked up at him. He was trying to make himself look smaller, trying to minimize his words with his body language. “It was _bad_. I’d lose myself, I’d do horrible things. Say horrible things. I felt like the only way that I could be noticed was if I did something horrible to get attention. I just always wasn’t enough when I was good, so I thought that maybe I’d get noticed if I was bad.”

 

     “And, you became who you were pretending to be?” I bit my lip, feeling as though there was so much more to Connor Murphy than what people had cared to look at. If they had just looked even a little bit deeper, they would have seen the damaged, broken kid who was just trying to make things okay again. “And, when you tried to go back. . .”

 

     “Only I didn’t go back, and I didn’t want to.” Connor’s voice was fierce. It wasn’t angry, but it burned with a holy fire that only preachers could conjure up when they talked about themselves. “No, when I became who I am – who I want to be – I knew what I was doing. I don’t regret a single thing I did. I’m not happy, that’s for sure, but I think that things could be worse.”

 

     “You don’t regret your suicide?” I wiped away a few of tears with the sleeve of Connor’s hoodie, seeing him cringe slightly at the sight of his hoodie getting my bodily fluids on it. “Didn’t it hurt? Don’t you regret that you left your family behind? Your mom was so broken up about your death.”

 

     “My family was perfect on the outside looking in.” Connor shook his head in anger and shame. “But, when you were living in it, you learned how imperfect it really is. My mother cared, but not enough to be a motherly figure. My dad didn’t care, and my sister and I drifted apart as we got older. I didn’t feel like I was losing anything. And, no, my suicide didn’t hurt.”

 

     “Overdose?” I asked without thinking, mentally kicking myself after speaking. Why had I asked that? Did I really think that Connor and I had a good enough relationship for me to ask about the gory details of his suicide?

 

     “Yeah, but I smoked a little bit of weed before to make it look like an accident.” Connor sounded almost surprised at his own plan, raising an eyebrow at his own words. “I wanted to make it look like an accident to anyone who didn’t care enough to look into my life. I did overdose, and it wasn’t very painful. I guess that what they say about cannabis being a good painkiller was true.”

 

     “I’m so sorry, Connor.” I blushed, not sure how to respond to Connor sharing the details of his suicide with me. “At least it didn’t hurt. At least you have a life beyond the one you led before, you have a second chance.”

 

     “A second chance?” Connor almost laughed, running his hand through his hair. It looked like Mrs Murphy was standing in front of me in Connor’s room again. I now noticed how alike they looked. “Yeah, I guess I have a second chance. But it isn’t me who deserves the second chance, I knew what I was doing the whole time that I was being self-destructive. No, _you’re_ the one I’m here to give a second chance to.”

 

     “Connor, you can’t fix me.” I shied away from him, biting my lip.

 

     “This isn’t a friendly invitation, Hansen.” Connor’s voice was firm and pushy, but not agitated. “I _will not_ see someone else fall down the hole that I did. I will _not_ allow any person that I care about to be hurt by themselves. Hansen, I know how you broke your arm. And I’m not going to shut up about it until you tell me that you’ll let me help you love yourself.”

 

     “Who are you, Katy Perry?” I almost laughed, finding it funny that Connor was trying the most generic gimmicks with me to open up about my anxiety and depression. “You can’t just say some uplifting words and open up about yourself and expect me to tell you about all of the things I hate about myself. It won’t work.”

 

     “Well, I’m just doing what I’m doing until something I try works.” Connor’s voice sounded determined and brave. He wasn’t going to give up, and my shoulders slouched as that realization truly hit me. “And, believe me, I will do everything in my power to annoy you to the point of allowing me to help you. I can literally bring you to your knees, and I hope it won’t come to that.”

 

      “I guess I should just bite the bullet and open up, huh?” I sounded like an unsure child, and I tapped my foot nervously. I felt like I was five again, confessing something dumb I’d done to my mom.

 

     “You might as well.” Connor’s voice and face were mischievous, yet he had somehow gotten around smiling yet again. “I mean, I’m learning the ropes still, but I could like deprive you of sleep or make you see images of Jared all the time in your head.”

 

      “Those both sound equally horrible.” I frowned, weighing the options one more time in my head. “If I didn’t sleep I’d die a slow, horrible death and seeing Jared all of the time would just be weird and uncomfortable.”

 

      “Then you better just give in.” Connor nodded, and swore for a second he was about to smile. That would have been the first time I’d ever seen Connor Murphy smile, but the moment was still yet to come, it seemed.

 

     “I guess I just always feel lonely, you know?” I was going to treat this whole intervention as a therapy session, it was the only thing I could relate my current situation to. “I don’t really have people around. I mean, I go to school, but I cut people out because I hate how it feels when I meet new people. I also hate how it feels when I’m alone and I _know_ I’m alone. I mean, not like there’s no one around me, but like I’ll die alone kind of thing. You know?”

 

      “I know exactly how that feels.” Connor’s voice was sympathetic, the only time I had heard it rise to this level. I was impressed, he wasn’t being sarcastic or condescending for once. “You just want to give up, because it feels like no one cares. Want to hear something I’ve learned about people like us, Evan?”

 

     “People like us?” I raised an eyebrow, my voice catching. What did he mean by that? People with depression? People who were done with life? People who were broken beyond repair?

 

      “People who don’t – didn’t – have Squips.” Connor clarified, closing his eyes as he spoke. The grey halo around his body became duller and his colors softened to more human tones. His skin looked almost like it had back when he was human, and everything about him seemed more real somehow. “We suffer from thinking we’re alone. We feel like we can’t reach out, we think we’re so different from everyone else that no one can reach us. That we’ve ascended to some new level of isolation due to the fact that we don’t have Squips.”

 

     “And, we don’t have the voice in our heads to talk to constantly like other people do.” I smiled, beginning to see Connor’s point of view. He was right, we were different, and that made it seem like humanity was a million miles away from us. “I guess you’re right. I never really thought about it, but it does seem like it drove me away from people in retrospect.”

 

      “See?” Connor extended his hands out as if to show me off to a class of people who were doubting his theory. “I think it’s by design. I mean, if someone doesn’t have a Squip, who would want to associate with them when you have a Squip yourself? I mean, you can’t message them without a cell phone, they’ll always be one step behind in every conversation and they’ll never be as ‘cool’ as you and your other friends.”

 

      “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” A smile played across my face, my tears from before completely forgotten and dried on the sleeve of Connor’s hoodie. “You know, your mom was talking about some conspiracy things before. I think I know where you get it from now.”

 

     “I just always thought that it didn’t make sense that people had little AI in their heads.” Connor shrugged, not opposed to the idea that him and his mother shared something in common. “I mean, where does the all the data they collect go? How come no one can figure out how to hack the things, even though they’re in every single household in the world? Why doesn’t anybody look at who makes the money off of people who die with Squips in their heads? Why aren’t people asking questions?”

 

     “Sounds like you’re asking a lot of questions.” I laughed, earning a glare from Connor. He was being serious, and he clearly did not appreciate my laughter. I shut up and looked at the ground to avoid his eyes. “But, you’re right, none of those things make a lot of sense when line up together.”

 

     “I just. . .” Connor trailed off, biting his lip as he tried to think of something to say. “I want to know what kind of pawn I’ve become, you know? I didn’t really care too much about Squips until I became one. But now I want to know what kind of damage I’m doing in your life, Hansen, and the damage that other Squips do in other people’s lives.”

 

     “It’s funny, I never really cared about Squips either until you showed up, either.” I laughed again and rubbed the back of my neck. Connor didn’t glare at me this time, it seemed okay that I had laughed. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was just something I’ve learn to tune out, you know? I mean, while everyone else was learning proper Squip etiquette in school, I was looking at the ceiling and playing with my pencil.”

 

      “I can’t believe we had to take those dumb Squip classes even though he didn’t have active Squips.” Connor sighed, putting his face in his hands. “I mean, I didn’t learn anything in class anyways, but making me take a class that I couldn’t even care about even if I wanted to? Who was the person who came up with that great idea?”

 

     “I don’t know, but maybe we should go and complain to them and tell them that they’re bad idea is the reason I have a dead kid as my Squip.” I smiled, and Connor looked back at me, his eyes wrinkled at the corners like he was about to smile. His lips didn’t move, and I wondered if I’d ever see him smile. “I mean, maybe that’s where we can track this back to.”

 

     “No, that’s not where we can track this back to.” Connor’s voice turned dark, and he didn’t meet my gaze again. “I know where we can track this back to. Okay, have you heard anything back from Jared, Zoe or Alana yet? I think it’s time we get back in touch with them. We need to see what they’ve found.”

 

     “I think I’m ready to face them.” I nodded, feeling confident. More confident than I had in a long time, which was saying something. I really had Connor on my side now, I could face anything. “I feel kind of bad for tripping and falling, but I guess it kind of worked out. Also, I should probably go and move your diary and make sure that no one finds it. It was symbolic, but I don’t think that it would be good for anyone to find it soaking wet on your lawn.”

 

     “I think you’re right about that.” Connor’s voice was calmly tinged with anger. “But, you see, it is _not_ a diary. It is a journal, in which I write about my day. So, call it a diary one more time and I’ll make sure you see Jared Kleinman every single time you close your eyes to so much as blink.”

 

      “It is a j-journal; how c-could I forget that?” I laughed nervously, once again worried about the kind of power that Connor wielded. Connor narrowed his eyes at me and scoffed before – I’m not kidding – smiling.

 

      “This relationship we have is so messed up.” Connor smiled even wider, laughing and running his hands through his hair again. It was strange to see him smile, and I let my jaw drop. Connor noticed and gave me a strange look, before realizing what he had done.

 

     We stared at each other for a few minutes, the only sound the soft pitter-patter of the rain falling onto the ground and the overhang over our heads. I was blushing, and so was he. I didn’t know if my reaction had been right, I hadn’t meant to offend him or make him feel alienated. I had just never thought that he smiled or laughed sincerely. But, like most things, I was wrong.

 

     “I guess you’ve never seen me laugh and smile, huh?” The left side of Connor’s mouth turned up in a half smile, making his previous smile seem so off. Half smiles suited him better, but his laugh was amazing. I wondered how many times he had laughed in the past few years. “Not many people have seen me happy. But, I think I’m ready to become happy again. I’m ready to fight for it again.”

 

      “Well, you won’t be fighting alone.” I extended my hand, making myself not fidget or bite my lip. Connor looked at my outstretched hand with distrust for a fraction of a second before extend out his own hand and taking my hand in his.

 

     “No, we’re no longer alone.” Connor smiled again, this one was determined and friendly. He nodded once, and I smiled back at him.

 

     “Now, I think it’s finally time to reunite with the rest of our team.” I pulled out my cell phone, deciding that a video chat wouldn’t be very good when my friends were trying to sneak around and steal documents. Connor pulled his hand away from mine and shrunk to normal Squip size before snapping his fingers and teleporting back up to my shoulder. “I’ll text Jared and see what they’re doing.”

 

     “But why Jared?” Connor whined, and I had to wonder whether he was just joking or if he was really just that pissed off at the fact that I was talking to Jared. “Can’t you text Alana?”

 

     “I don’t have her number.” I began typing out a message to send to Jared, hoping that the number I had for him was correct. “I have Zoe’s number, but she’s probably looking through documents or worrying about deadlines. This won’t help, but Jared is probably just the lookout.”

 

     “So, this is a situation where you’re using logic.” Connor sounded impressed. He looked down at his nails, admiring the perfectly black polish that coated them. “I didn’t know you were able to do that.”

 

     “Oh, ha ha. Very funny.” I said dryly, rolling my eyes. I finished typing out my message to Jared, and I hit send as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to waste another second, I was really beginning to worry about how Jared, Alana and Zoe were doing.

 

     Jared’s response was almost immediate.

 

 **EvanHansen:** Hey, Jared. i just got away from Mrs Murphy and Connor is back. can we meet up with each other now?

 

 **JaredKleinman:** were not done. meet us here asap zoe wants connor here, since this is about him

 

 **EvanHansen:** Sounds good, i will ask Connor how to get into the house quickly

 

 **JaredKleinman:** ok, whatever. just dont make too much noise when you come in

 

 **EvanHansen:** Can do. See you soon, Jared

 

 **JaredKleinman:** be quick, zoe and alana could use the help from what i hear

 

 **EvanHansen:** Ill be there soon

 

     I closed out my messaging app and sighed, happy to know that nothing too terrible had happened. I looked to Connor, who seemed nonplussed by what Jared had said, he just didn’t want to be here right now. I wondered if Squips could sleep, because Connor looked like he needed a nap. Or, like most teenagers, he just always felt like he needed a nap due to how hectic life could get at times.

 

     “So, how do I get into the house and to your dad’s study without anyone noticing?” I bit my lip and raised my voice at the end of my question, hoping that Connor had an easy way to get into his old home. “Your mom is still inside, and it would be weird if I showed up again. She’d think I was some kind of creeper or suicidal or something.”

 

     “Okay, get the journal first.” Connor instructed, slowly fidgeting with his fingers and crossing and uncrossing his legs. “Then we’ll sneak in through the open window in the living room. No one knows it is always kept open, it’s the window I always used to sneak out through.”

 

     “Wow, you’re the kind of teenager every teenager wishes they could be.” I smirked, pulling up the hood on Connor’s hoodie. I began the slow trudge across the Murphy’s lawn to get to Connor’s journal that I had thrown. It was soaking wet, and it looked like it would need to be fully replaced; no one would be able to write in this thing ever again. Or, more importantly, read the words contained on the pages.

 

     I shoved the soaking wet journal into the pocket of Connor’s hoodie again. Connor didn’t say anything about the journal, he was too busy trying to figure out how he was going to get me – who was much more uncoordinated and awkward that him – through the living room window and into his house. He sighed at his efforts, knowing that I was his ticket into the house. A Squip could only go so far away from its host before it lost contact with their host and gave them a nasty headache. And I really didn’t want a headache.

 

     I slowly jogged back to the safety of the overhang, grateful that the rain had begun to slow down. It looked like it might clear up soon, and I really hoped so because I would probably be walking home again. I forgot about my own problems for a second and looked at Connor with expecting eyes, wondering how he was going to figure out how to get me into his house.

 

     “So, you got it figured out yet how I’m going to get into your house?” I asked, shouldering my backpack again in a fluid movement. I was impressed that my motions were slowly becoming less awkward, but I wondered why it was happening. Part of me suspected Connor’s influence, but Connor would have thought it was conspiratorial or something. “I mean, I think I’d be able to climb into a low window without failing too badly. But a higher window could be harder for me.”

 

     “The best thing I can think of would be to just let you try and fail.” Connor sounded like he was being genuine, and I worried about my health and safety for a second. Just let me try and fail without any guidance? What was Connor thinking? “Then, if you really can’t get it, I’ll help you out.”

 

      “Or you could just tell me your method so that I can copy that.” I smiled awkwardly, trying to get out of climbing into a window blindly. I played with my cast again, running my fingers along where I knew Connor’s name was on the white surface even though I couldn’t see it. “I mean, I like that idea. No need to make me fall in the mud unless it’s necessary, right?”

 

      “Wrong, you’ll learn pretty fast.” Connor was unrelenting, and I sighed in defeat. “Okay, now walk along this side of the house-” Connor pointed to my left “-and climb up into the second to last window on the right side. Besides, you’ve climbed up enough trees in the past. You’ll be fine.”

 

     I followed Connor’s directions and snuck across the side of the house. The windows here had curtains covering them, but I knew that Mrs Murphy would be able to see me if she opened up the curtains and looked down. The windows were about at my shoulder level, so I’d need a boost to be able to get up into the window.

 

     The window that I was supposed to be climbing into soon came into view. I placed my hands against the siding, feeling my breath catch in my throat. Of course this was going to be hard. I’d have to climb up into the window without making too much noise, and also not breaking anything. Even worse, I didn’t know what was on the other side of the wall. For all I knew, it was some kind of expensive vase or family heirloom or something.

 

      “Are you sure this is safe?” I whispered to Connor, not sure if whispering was needed. I didn’t want to make noise and draw anyone to where we were standing, but I also needed to communicate with Connor. “I mean, what is on the other side of this window? And what if I break something, or make a mess on the carpet? What then?”

 

     “Just don’t do any of those things and you’ll be fine.” Connor said in a bored voice. I narrowed my eyes and sighed, why was it that Connor could be so nice and forgiving and so condescending and unhelpful in the same hour? “I’ve done this a million different times, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

 

     I took a deep breath and tried to remember how to break into a window. When I was younger and I didn’t have a house key, I’d have to go in through a window every once in a while. At first it was for fun, but it was later just an annoyance. I had had a house key for the past couple of years, so I was out of practice for climbing through windows. I just hoped that I could either remember or that climbing through a window was like climbing a tree.

 

      I pursed my lips and brought my hands up to the pane of the window, trying to push it up. After a second, it gave and slid up slightly. I pushed it up about two and a half feet, hoping that that would be enough room for me to shimmy through. Bringing my hands up to the window sill, I planted my feet against the side of the house. I cursed the muddy footprints that were showing up on the side of the house. Thankfully, I wasn’t getting rained on due to the small overhang over the window. Wet hands would only make things worse, I knew that much for sure.

 

     With a sudden burst of strength, I pulled myself up and moved my hands so that they were inside of the Murphy house. I moved my feet up the side of the house at the same time, hoping that my idea on how to get into this house would work. My fingers hurt from the strain of my whole body’s weight, but I gave myself one more push before I could see the window pane a few inches away from my face.

 

     I stuck my head through the crack in the window, and my torso was next to go into the house. My legs dangled out of the house for a second while I was pinned on my stomach as I was half in and half out of the house. I whimpered in fear for a moment before giving myself one smaller burst of strength and throwing my body fully into the Murphy’s house.

 

     I tumbled onto the floor, doing a front flip and landing on my back. I sprawled out on the carpet, which was thankfully tan like the other carpeted parts of the Murphy house. I sighed and studied the ceiling for a second while I awaited Connor’s directions on how to get to his father’s study and reunite with Jared, Alana and Zoe.

 

     I moved my eyes from the ceiling to the rest of the room. In my haste to get into the house, I hadn’t noticed the décor of the living room. It was all mismatched furniture, the first time I had seen that in the Murphy household. It looked like someone had taken items of furniture that they had liked and just thrown them into the room without a care in the world. There was a 70-inch TV mounted on one wall, with a large fireplace on the opposite wall. The room was about fifty paces by fifty paces.

 

     There were no crystal chandeliers, only old lamps with odd-looking lampshades. Instead of expensive, imported wood tables there were dented coffee tables that had seen many years of wear and tear. The carpet, though nice, had clearly been treaded on by many feet over the years. Everything in the room was clean, but it clearly had a story to tell. I could almost see Connor and Zoe running around the room laughing and singing as children as they played. It made the whole house feel more like home.

 

     “This place doesn’t look anything like the rest of your house.” I whispered to Connor in astonishment. It looked like the living room of any normal family, and maybe that was what Mrs Murphy was going for. “It seems almost homely, like someone could sit down and feel happy here without worrying about messing up some kind of color scheme or something. No offense, your house is very beautiful, really.”

 

     “None taken, I get what you mean.” Connor nodded, his voice sounding light and high. “My dad hated this room because of that, he thought it was in poor taste. My mom loved it because it reminded her of her living room she had when she was a little girl. Zoe and I played in this room all of the time when we were kids, this is where our family had Christmas every year, too.”

 

     “I hate to leave.” I said, thinking of the happy memories that Connor and his family had had in this room. The image of a young Connor and a young Zoe running around on Christmas morning to see what Santa had left them under the tree stuck in my head, of course Connor liked this room. The good moments of life had happened here. “But lead the way if you’re ready to leave now.”

 

     “Yeah, I’m ready to leave.” Connor’s voice had a slight tone of heartbrokenness to it, but he also sounded like he didn’t regret leaving. “So, down that hall there-” Connor pointed to down a hallway that was on the side of the room I looking at as I still laid on my back. “-and it’s the first door on the left. It isn’t too far, so you can’t really get lost.”

 

     “Have you ever been in your dad’s study before?” I asked in a soft voice as I pulled myself up to my feet. My stomach hurt slightly, but I brushed it off and followed Connor’s directions as quietly as I could. “He seems like the kind of person who would keep what is his to himself and keep others away.”

 

     “He was always like that, and still is.” Connor nodded, his voice solemn. “This’ll be the first time inside of the study, but I’ve seen it from afar a few times. He let Zoe and I see it, but nothing more.”

 

     “He sounds like he really likes his distance from people and places.” I frowned, trying to figure out Mr Murphy. I turned the corner into the hallway without any fanfare, but I could see the door to Mr Murphy’s study right away. Pride swelled in my chest and I smiled. “Well, now you’ll get to go inside of your father’s study for the first time. Congratulations, you’ve made it this far.”

 

     As I set my hand onto the doorknob (the thick wood of the door was very dark and very old) when I heard footsteps behind me. I whipped around, fearing that Mrs Murphy had found me again, but I only saw Jared standing behind me. Connor wasn’t very happy to see Jared, I knew that. But I was overjoyed to see him, it meant that no one had gotten caught.

 

     “You finally decided to show up, and only a half hour late.” Jared crossed his arms over his chest, his voice was displeased. Quinn was nowhere to be seen, I assumed that Jared had either turned her off or she was working with Zoe and Alana. “I guess you should win the award for being the latest to a secret mission. Because I think it would be funny as Hell to see you win that award.”

 

     “Very funny, Jared.” Connor glared at Jared. Connor was trying to hold in his anger the best that he could, and he wasn’t doing too bad, really. “But we’re here now, so I guess we still somewhat care.”

 

     “Whatever.” Jared’s voice was acidic, and he sneered at Connor before looking at me. “So, how was the talk with Mrs Murphy? How’d you get away from her in the end? Did you have to run away from her?”

 

     “No, we sat down and had a normal conversation about Connor.” I said, happy that I could at least tell part of the truth. I had told Mrs Murphy about how I was feeling, but I had lied to her about so many other things. “I told her about how much I missed him, how we were best friends and eventually I left. She doesn’t know I’m back in her house, though, so it could be really awkward if she finds us.”

 

     “Evan, are you wearing Connor’s clothes?” Jared asked, he had clearly not heard anything I had just said. I blushed and looked down at the clothes I was wearing, they were so obviously Connor’s clothes, I would never wear such dark tones. “Wow, so tell me, when you two hook up, does Zoe know? I mean, I feel like she should know that her brother is not only a Squip, but is sleep-”

 

     “One more word, Jared, and you’re dead.” Connor’s voice was low and malicious, but Jared didn’t flinch away. “I would never, ever do that kind of thing with _Evan Hansen,_ even if I was into guys. Which I’m not. But if I was, Hansen would be very far down my list.”

 

      “I agree with you all the way on that.” Jared nodded, and I felt sad and happy that Jared and Connor were bonding over their shared dislike of me as a romantic partner. I blushed and felt a slight bit of anger and embarrassment bubble up inside of me. “I mean, I would defiantly do Zoe-”

 

      “Watch yourself.” Connor murmured in a deadly voice, but Jared didn’t notice.

 

     “-and maybe Alana, but not Evan.” Jared finished up his sentence, and my whole face and my ears were on fire.

 

     “W-Wow, guys, thanks for the n-nice wo-words.” I stammered, my blush only getting worse. Jared gave me a smile and thumbs up, and Connor just shrugged at me. I sighed and buried my head in my hands. “G-Good to know y-you guys would ne-never date me.”

 

     “That’s what I’m here for, Evan.” Jared smile again and took a mock bow, Connor’s glare only hardened as he looked at him. “I’m just the lookout here, but I think that Zoe and Alana might need you two in there.”

 

     Without saying another word, I opened the door to Mr Murphy’s study and walked into the room. Zoe was looking through paper documents, sorting them into things to keep and things to leave. The papers she was holding were in all different colors and sizes, unlike how I had believed they would be. Alana was going through documents on a computer at near breakneck speed, she didn’t look up when I entered the room like Zoe did.

 

     “Evan, you’re here.” Zoe sounded surprised and let the papers she was holding fall to the ground. There were many, many papers coating the floor. It was almost like they were trying to make it very obvious to anyone that they had broken into the place. “I didn’t think you’d come. But I’m glad you’re here, we could use Connor’s help.”

 

     “So, you really didn’t need me. . .” I trailed off, my voice barely above a whisper. Zoe ignore me and looked at Connor, who was still sitting on my shoulder.

 

     “Have you found anything yet?” Connor’s voice didn’t betray any emotion, he sounded calm and collected. Zoe met his voice with an emotionless gaze, and she sighed heavily.

 

     “Bills, and lots of monetary transactions.” Zoe shook her head and hugged herself. Alana was still working, she was completely engrossed in whatever was dancing across the computer screen she was looking at. “Bills sent to not very honest people for not very honest reasons. Notes and letters about your sickness, Connor, and I suspect that some of these letters about prototype Squips from SquipTech might be something important.”

 

     “Any running theories?” Connor’s voice had a tinge of hope in it, but I knew that he wasn’t going to get his hopes up for something that might not happen. “Anything better than just ‘Connor Murphy is different because he couldn’t have a Squip’?”

 

     “Nothing so far, if you can believe it.” Zoe spoke softly, almost like she was consoling a young child. All at once it hit me that Connor was scared. He didn’t know what he was, and he was desperate to figure it out. My heart broke for him, and I worried about his mental health.

 

      Connor didn’t say anything in response, he just floated over to Alana. I wanted to say something to him to make him feel better, but he was already gone by the time I opened my mouth. He muttered a few words to Alana dejectedly and then disappeared again. I looked at Zoe, who had picked up more papers already. I bent down and sat down on the floor, reading some of the papers that she had discarded.

 

     The papers were written fully in English, and I wondered if that was because Mr Murphy was only dealing with people in the US and the English-speaking parts of Europe, or if he had just translated any dealings with people from other countries with different languages into English to make things easier for himself. As I looked through the papers, the words ‘money’, ‘patent’ and ‘Squip’ kept showing up again and again. There was too much technical jargon and business lingo for me to understand what was being said, but those few words kept coming up.

 

     “Why are you only taking some of the papers?” I asked Zoe, and she looked at me with a slightly happy look in her eye. She seemed almost relieved to be away from sorting papers for a second. “Why not take all of them and then destroy the ones you don’t want?”

 

     “We’re taking only things that teenage thieves wouldn’t take, so it doesn’t look like we did it.” Zoe explained, tossing more papers in a pile across the room. “If we only took documents pertaining to Connor, it would be obvious who was here. But, if we take Connor’s documents, my documents _and_ the financial documents, it’ll look like a petty theft. Which is how we want it to look.”

 

     “Oh, that’s really smart.” I smiled, looking down at a file of papers that Zoe had just pulled from a filing cabinet. The file was labeled ‘fiscal report 2096’ and Zoe took the whole thing. The next one was labeled ‘family Christmas 2104’ and Zoe opened it up and looked at the photos in it.

 

     I looked over her shoulder, and I saw the photos that she was looking at. They were perfectly colored and glossy, and they were from the Murphy family Christmas. The Murphy family was sitting in their living room, around a large tree that was glittering with lights and ornaments. Connor was pretty young, only about four and Zoe was even younger, maybe two or three. Zoe was in a red velvet dress, and Connor was dressed up like an elf. Everyone in the photo was smiling, even Mr Murphy. He looked almost happy, and Mrs Murphy looked so proud of her family.

 

     Zoe didn’t know what to think of the photo. She reached out and brushed her fingertips against it to try and figure out if it was really real or not. She then flipped through the rest of the images. They consisted of Connor and Zoe opening up gifts, stars glowing in their eyes as they did. There were a few more group photos, and lastly one of Connor and Zoe sleeping side by side on the couch. A dog, who I suspected was Alex, was sleeping at Zoe’s feet.

 

      “I just sometimes wish we could be those people again.” Zoe whispered to me, her voice filled with anger and despair. “Maybe none of this would have happened if we wouldn’t have changed. But I guess people just seem to change for the worse without warning some times.”

 

     “I think we can all be the people we want to be, Zoe.” I looked her in the eye as she clutched the file folder close to her chest. “We just have to work towards being better every second of every day, and never give up on our dream to be better. Even when all we want to do is just end it all and start all over again anew.”

 

     “You’re really optimistic, Evan.” Zoe smiled, the kind of soft smile that I loved to see on her face. “I hope you’re right. Because right now what this family needs is a second chance. And I think that our second chance might just be Connor. It’s weird to say it out loud, but I really think that Connor just might be able to bring all of us closer to each other.”

 

     “I think that your family will put itself back together no matter what.” I returned her soft smile and watched as she tenderly put down the file folder she was holding and picked up a new one and began rummaging through it.

 

     Zoe didn’t speak to me the rest of the time that we looked at papers. We tore through file folder after file folder as fast as we could. Some file folders had things in them that we could use, others didn’t. The papers we couldn’t use were torn slightly to make it look hasty and thrown indiscriminately throughout the room. The more papers were thrown, the more it looked like a tornado had gone through the place. Zoe then got up and knocked down a few books and broke down a lamp for good measure, or maybe out of anger of what she was reading. I wasn’t quite sure.

 

     Nearly twenty minutes passed this way, just looking over paper after paper after paper. I was beginning to grow bored at looking at so many different words again and again, and the constant lull of technical gibberish was making me dizzy. I kept going, until Jared stuck his head into the room and announced that we’d have to leave soon so that we wouldn’t caught.

 

      “Okay, Evan, take these.” Zoe shoved some papers towards me, and I saw that they were some of the family papers that she had been looking at before. They were mostly photos and other memories on paper. “I want you to keep these safe somewhere. That way, even if the other papers get found, I’ll at least rest easy knowing that childhood memories are being protected.”

 

      “O-Okay.” I stammered, blushing. I didn’t know Zoe trusted me so much, and it was a great feeling. I loved seeing her happy, and if taking care of some old photos made her happy, then so be it. I’d take care of those photos until the end of time. “I can take care of th-these.”

 

      “Good.” Zoe nodded once, then turned to Alana. They talked quietly, and I shoved the papers into my backpack with care. I didn’t want to damage the papers or photos, Zoe loved them so much I’d feel horrible if anything happened to them.

 

     Connor flashed back over to me, the grey light around him was almost shaking. It was like everything about him was nervous, and I wanted nothing more than to help him. Part of me wondered why I cared so much about the Murphy siblings, but I just figured that since I already cared so deeply for Zoe, I would show affection (a different kind, of course) for Connor, too.

 

     “Everything okay?” I asked Connor in a small voice, but he didn’t meet my gaze.

 

     “My father kept a lot of things on his computer.” Connor simply said, his shoulder squaring. I knew that he was trying to keep everything under control, and that the harder he tried the more he failed. My heart broke for him, but I promised myself that I’d help him as soon as we got home. “Some of them were most disturbing than others.”

 

     “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. For some reason, that seemed to be enough because Connor just shot me a sad smile. It was still strange that he was smiling, but I wasn’t complaining. He looked good with a smile on his face.

 

     “Let’s just get out of here and figure out how to make things better tomorrow.” Connor sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Right now, I just want to sleep and not worry about the battle’s I’ll fight tomorrow.”

 

     “That sounds amazing, to not worry about anything for a few hours.” I smiled sadly before looking up and seeing Zoe and Alana talking heatedly over Mr Murphy’s computer. Zoe turned away from Alana and Alana quickly slid a USB drive out of the computer. The little drive could have held thousands of documents, USB drives were sold with at least 50 gigabytes as standard these days.

 

      “Okay, Evan, can you get yourself home quietly?” Zoe asked, her voice sounding strained. “Jared can take care of himself, I know that, but I want to make sure you’ll get home safe.”

 

      “I can get home safe and without making too much noise, yeah.” I said, looking to Connor for confirmation. He nodded at my words and I felt dread build in my stomach at the thought of leaving Zoe again. I had just gotten so close to her, why did it have to end so soon? “Connor can help me get out of your house quietly and get back home without, you know, getting hit by a car or anything.”

 

      “Good.” Zoe pursed her lips and touched Alana softly on her arm. Alana had both of her hands on her temples, she looked like she was in pain. “Alana, are you okay? Is something wrong?”

 

      “Just a bit of a headache, nothing really.” Alana smiled, wincing at the pain that smiling caused her head. “Danny probably just hit some kind of firewall or something, when he was on your dad’s computer. This isn’t a biological headache, this is something to do with my software. I’ll survive, though, really. It should go away after a couple of hours, I’ve had worse.”

 

     “Let’s hope it goes away quicker than a few hours.” Zoe smiled gently and sent one more look in my direction before pulling Alana out of the house. “Alana and I are going to leave now, just be gone in the next ten minutes. If you’re going to call a cab, Jared, make sure they park at least two blocks away, okay?”

 

     “You got it, darling.” Jared smiled at Zoe, who glared back at him. “I would _never_ put this mission in jeopardy, then I wouldn’t be able to see you outside of school. And what a sad life that would be.”

 

     Zoe didn’t reply, and Alana didn’t say anything as she walked out, the pain she was in looked be immense. I felt bad for her, I was worried that she might have damaged her software or something. I hoped that Danny was okay, I didn’t want her to have to replace her Squip or go to the hospital or anything. That would really ruin everyone’s night, not to mention it could have an effect on Alana’s health.

 

     “Well, Evan, I guess this is where we part ways.” Jared gave me a mock salute as he followed Zoe and Alana out of Mr Murphy’s study. I quickly followed after them, not wanting to be left behind. Zoe, who hadn’t expected us to follow her right away, gave us weird looks.

 

     “Thank you for showing up and helping, really.” Zoe smiled thinly at me, but she didn’t send the same gesture to Jared. Alana didn’t say anything, she was focusing on her breathing and tapping her foot mildly. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow at school. Be sure to show up at school tomorrow, no excuses. Otherwise it will look suspicious if anyone starts asking questions.”

 

      “I don’t need no education.” Jared scoffed, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. Zoe scoffed back at him and rolled her eyes.

 

     “First of all, that was a double negative.” Zoe shifted her weight and placed a hand on her hip while I quietly closed the door I had just walked through. “Secondly, that is a Pink Floyd lyric from Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 and I bet you didn’t even know it.”

 

      “You listen to Pink Floyd?” Jared raised an eyebrow and Zoe’s cheeks turned red as he made fun of her music choice. “Aren’t they a band from, like, the 1970’s? They’re like over a hundred years old now.”

 

      “They still made good music.” Connor piped up, surprising everyone. I don’t know what I expected him to listen to, but Pink Floyd wasn’t it. “Their best album was Animals, without a doubt. But I still like The Wall.”

 

     “Obscured by Clouds was the best.” Zoe argued, a smile pulling at the sides of her lips. Her pretty, perfect, pink lips. “We never could agree on their best album, could we? Even as kids we’d disagree about it, I guess some things never change.”

 

     “I guess you’re right.” Connor sounded almost happy as he thought back to listening to Pink Floyd with Zoe when they were kids. Music seemed to be the only thing that united them. “But we really should get home before anyone looks out their window and sees a gaggle of teenagers standing outside of the Murphy house.”

 

      “Good idea, Alana and I are out.” Zoe walked with Alana off into a very dark part of the backyard, and I wasn’t able to see where they went from there. The rain had almost completely stopped, but there was still a mist that was falling over Jared and I as we stood outside.

 

      Night had fallen while we were inside of the Murphy house going through the papers Mr Murphy had. Because of this, all of the light that would have been around was now gone and the world was clothed in darkness. Squips were outfitted with the ability to give their users night vision, so street lamps weren’t used very much anymore. Connor didn’t know how to turn on my night vision, though, so I just saw darkness.

 

     “Well, bye, Evan.” Jared waved before walking up to the front of the Murphy house and taking a left onto the sidewalk. His walk was slow and more confident than what I thought Jared could pull off, but I wasn’t going to question it.

 

     “Bye, Jared.” I smiled, waving back at Jared. He rolled his eyes at this and kept on walking. On my shoulder, Connor made an inquisitive noise as he watched Jared go.

 

     “Wait a couple of seconds, and then follow him.” Connor ordered quietly, and I looked down at him wide eyes. “Something’s not right, Jared lives out of town. He would have called a cab. So far, we haven’t seen Quinn show up to make a call and he hasn’t reached for his cell phone. Cabs take forever to show up, he knows that.”

 

     “Connor, I know you don’t like him, but I highly-” I was cut off by Connor mid-sentence.

 

      “I don’t care what you think, I don’t trust him.” Connor growled, digging his fingernails into my shoulder. I whimpered quietly and protested, refusing to move.

 

     “Connor, I trust him.” I shook my head. Why did everything have to be a conspiracy with the Murphy family? Couldn’t people just do weird things without being questioned? Couldn’t we all just move on with our lives and let the weird people alone? “I’m not going to follow him just because you think we should.”

 

     “Hansen, I promise you I’m doing this in everyone’s best interest.” Connor’s voice was on the edge of breaking, and there were so many emotions tied up in his words. “Just follow him for a few blocks. If I’m wrong, then you can go back home and forget about this whole thing. Hansen, I’m asking you to trust me. Please.”

 

     “I trust you, Connor.” I nodded, still feeling bad about not trusting Jared in the process of trusting Connor. Why couldn’t I just trust everyone at once? Why did I have to pick and choose?

 

     With a final sigh, I followed Jared into the night.

 

**End of Act One**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter is the end of act one. Just like a musical, I wanted to split this into two parts, just so that people would have a reference to when things get really bad. And things will get really bad pretty soon, so prepare yourself for the archive warnings to really kick in.  
> The next chapter is going to be an intermission. The intermission is going to consist of text logs, some journal entries from Connor, and some letters Evan wrote to himself, along with some other stuff that will help to push the plot along by filling in a few holes that have been (painfully) left open because of how I want the plot to work out.  
> Thank you so much for the support of this story, all of the comments and kudos really make my day!


	9. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the intermission of the story, in which some more background on characters, their motives and some other letters are shown. Diary entries from Connor, letters to himself from Evan, and text logs between Alana and Zoe, Larry and Jared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a suicide warning again for this chapter, mainly the parts that are Connor's diary entries. (also, spoiler for the show, but it talked about Connor making a first attempt on his life before, so I tried to add that in there.)  
> This chapter didn't take as long to write to to edit (well, other than Word telling me I had misspelled lots of words because teenagers don't use correct grammar) so it is being posted a day early, so yay, I guess?  
> Once again, this chapter serves to be a break between the first and second acts, so that some background can be given and motives can be established.  
> Enjoy!

_8-12-17_

_Okay, so, some shit happened today. Which is just perfect, because all I need right now is more things that are out of my control happening._

_Aside from the usual stuff, I was kind of found out today by some local police officers. I mean, it’s nothing I can’t handle. You slip them a couple of twenties and ask them to please drop the charges, while making sure you assert to them that your name is Murphy. And, if they say no and you’ve got an officer who actually upholds the law, then you duck and run, and deal with the problems that creates at a later date._

_Then you go to court and get your dad to pay off the cops for you. There’s just one question to how well your plan works: does your dad really want to bail his son out of police custody for the third time? Well, I guess for me, the answer is yes. So, I guess I might have found the one upside of being a part of the Murphy family._

_When your father doesn’t want people to think that his is a total mess-up, he’ll do anything just to keep his reputation clean to be able to work within the moral grey areas without any repercussions._

_I wonder what other upsides exist to being a part of this dysfunctional mess. I guess that there are a few, thought they mostly revolve around money and wealth._

_While my peers are worried about how they’re going to pay for college, I’m pretty much set. I don’t have to worry about other monetary things, but other than that there aren’t any other advantages of being a part of the Murphy family. As long as one keeps their head down and doesn’t make too much noise they can survive in this family. That doesn’t mean I can’t survive in this family, I can shut up when I want to._

_I have a problem with keeping my head down. I can’t not argue and fight with my family, especially when I know that they’re wrong._

_Like about my ‘problem’. I’m fine, I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m fine because I’m fine and I don’t need anyone to tell me different because they’re wrong. Yeah, they know I’m depressed, and they know I’m more paranoid than anyone else they know. They know that I’m anxious and that the sound of anything dropping will cause my body to go rigid. But that’s just me, so no need to worry. But I know you won’t worry anyways._

_Also, my head hurts a little, so I think I might have gotten drunk and high at the same time, which isn’t like me. Not even high me. And, also unlike me I got high someplace that wasn’t home. Usually my family leaves me alone enough so I can just lock myself in my room and everyone else leaves me alone. But, apparently, I thought it would be better to go elsewhere. Not that I’m complaining, I vividly remember trees and grass._

_I’m going to track down wherever I was last night, since Larry seems to have something against telling his son things. I guess some things just never change._

_Talk to you later, Emil._

_8-15-17_

_I found the park. It took me a few days, because this town has a lot of parks and I don’t have a lot of free time these days anymore (Cynthia is making me stay home because she thinks it’ll ‘help my mental health’. What a ludicrous idea, as if staying in a home full of hate could make me feel better.)._

_It’s a park called ‘Swan Lake Park’, and I have to admit I know why I’d go there to get high. There’s a large park area where kids can play, yeah, but when you walk away from that there’s this huge field that’s dotted with trees. Big, wonderful trees that reach really tall into the sky. And, on days when it’s really sunny, the sun filters through the leaves and it makes the forest seem like the Dark Forest in Europe._

_Now, Emil, you know me. I’m not really a ‘nature person’. Unless a leaf can be made into something enjoyable, I really don’t care about it. But this field. . . I’ve never seen so many trees in one place looking as amazing as this looked. Once again, not a nature person, but I think that sometimes anyone and everyone can enjoy something as simple as a field full of trees._

_Let’s just put it into the form of something I think everyone can relate to: I wouldn’t mind dying there._

_Yeah, it might be gruesome if some kid found my body, but I think that if I went to a certain part of the park, I won’t have to worry about that. Which is just perfect, because I think I found the place. I failed once before, and that was a huge blow to not only my pride but my want to live._

_This time, I’m not going to fail._

_I don’t have a plan fully thought out yet, though. I just know where, but I don’t know when or how. But I know that I’ll be homeschooled this year if everything goes according to plan, which makes things much, much simpler than before. More time at home means more time to look around and gauge what I have to work with when it comes to chemicals and weapons and the like._

_When they find this log one day, they’ll wonder how they didn’t see the warning signs. They’ll wonder why they didn’t stop me._

_Thanks for listening, Emil._

_8-19-17_

_I JUST CANNOT DEAL WITH ANYTHING ANYMORE! I’M SO FUCKING DONE WITH LIFE, I NEED TO MOVE THIS WHOLE SUICIDE THING FASTER RIGHT. NOW._

_I was promised – multiple times, I must add – that I wouldn’t have to GO to school for my senior year. I’ve been wanting to try homeschooling for years, and I finally, FINALLY, got it. Cynthia said yes, and she ordered the stuff off of the Internet and that was going to be the end of it. I’d be able to skip out on homeschooling so much easier than public school, and I could just ‘take a walk’ one day and never come back._

_But, earlier this morning, Larry found out about the plan. He said that it was, and I quote “unhealthy for a troubled teenager to not be around other people. If someone wants attention so bad to cut themselves open for it, then they can sure get some at school”. Like, what the actual fuck?! I didn’t make an attempt on my life for attention, first of all, and secondly why would you want to subject me to the torture that public high school is?_

_Now my plans are dashed. I mean what the fuck, universe?! I know you don’t want me to live anymore, I know you hate me, why are you taking every chance I have at killing myself?! I finally have a chance, a way to end it all and you make it harder for me?!_

_Whatever. I’ll figure it out one way or another. I’ll just have to push the inevitable forward a little while, maybe drop some hints about it again so that my family can rip their hair wondering why they didn’t try to stop me._

_Not being able to stop someone you care about – no one ‘loves’ anyone in this family – from self-destructive behavior (such as suicide), and having to live with that realization your whole life is a fate worse than death. Which is my fate in just a few weeks, when everything goes according to plan._

_Swan Lake Park, here I come. Talk to you in a few days, Emil._

_PS I’ve been wondering lately if I should leave a note. Oddly, it’s been the only thing I can think about. I don’t think I will, a note will give away all of the power that I have in death, it will make everyone point at something definite instead of looking around for answers. Because if they look well enough, they’ll find you, Emil. And then they’ll have all the notes they want. In the most colorful and hurtful language possible, the unfiltered thoughts of a 17-year-old boy._

_8-23-17_

_Nothing too important happened today, just the same old same old. Cynthia tried to have a ‘family breakfast’ again, which I showed up high for just to smite her. Then Larry was on his phone the whole time while Zoe gave death glares to Cynthia when she tried to talk to her. I don’t think anyone in this house knows how be a family, not even if someone gave them a book or class on how to be a family (what’s ironic is that Cynthia’s gone to enough ‘family classes’ to last a lifetime, so I assume she’d know)._

_Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be a part of a family, a real one who cares. I’ve seen enough families on TV and in the movies to know that the mom and dad support each other and their kids are always well-behaved. Then they have a family pet – like a dog or a cat or a fish or something – and they go on happy vacations together. Not skiing with the neighbors. No something like camping, something that requires being a team and not just sitting in the hotel room talking to your Squip the whole time. Not expensive waterparks and vacations to Europe, but meaningful trips to lakes and bakeries and such._

_I think that that kind of family is just too far out of the Murphy ‘family’s’ reach, though. Real families love each other, and they create an environment when sons don’t refer to their parents by a first name basis only. Funny, I think that I’m starting to feel an emotion. I think a normal person would call this one ‘despair’. I want something so bad, yet I can’t have it. I also think I’m feeling anger, but that’s always there._

_Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be someone else, just for a while. To be someone who has a family, who is able to feel normal emotions, someone who can love and be loved. I just wish that things weren’t so messed up, and I think I know why I feel so far away from everyone else._

_I don’t have a Squip, and they all do. Everyone on the planet has one, yet I don’t. I never got a real answer from the doctor as to why, unless you count a disgruntled sigh as an answer, which I don’t and never will. But this rift that’s between us, my parents and sibling and I, is because we can’t understand each other emotionally. Maybe, if they all unplugged, even for a few hours, would everything be better? Would the world go from terrible to bright?_

_Is that even a possibility for the us?_

_Thanks for listening, Emil. My plans are still in disarray, but I’m getting closer and closer to my final hours, which is nice to know. At least I have a place, now I just need the last two pieces and I’m done._

_9-1-17_

_First day of school, same old same old. Nothing ever seems to change. All that it was missing was Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, and it would have been just like The Wall if given a little more time. Why did Pink Floyd have to die so long ago? Too bad I can’t go see one of their concerts._

_I met up with Jared Kleinman in the hallway. What IS that kid’s deal? I can tell that he’s hiding something, he just screams it in the way he walks, the way he talks. Sometimes I want to sit down and figure it out, sometimes I hear rumors about his dad having addictions at school. I don’t reply to them, but I think that they have some kind of stock. Jared ‘complimented’ my hair. I really don’t care what he thinks, I like it. Well, it’s the opposite of the short haircuts Cynthia would get for me when I was little, so that’s the point. Larry and Cynthia both hate the haircut I have beyond words, but they don’t call an intervention._

_I think good parents who care about me would have called an intervention by now._

_And another reason why Larry and Cynthia are horrible parents. Cynthia was so happy when she found out she was having kids, yet she’s terrible at taking care of us. Yeah, us, I’m including Zoe in this whole thing now._

_I know that Zoe can’t be having too much fun being my sister. I guess that I say some pretty fucked up things to her when I lose myself, which kind of sucks. I don’t mean them, but when I lose myself I lose my self-control. I say things that my subconscious thinks. She’s not really that bad, she just got dealt a bad hand in life. She just got handed a really bad family, and I can’t help but take some responsibility for that._

_I think that Zoe had a good first day back. We passed each other in the hallway. Zoe has lots of admirers and acquaintances, but she stays away from other people in the school for the most part, she was always pretty antisocial even when we were kids. She would rather play quietly by herself or with Alex without other people around. I guess I was always the same way, too, from what Cynthia has told me._

_My childhood is really nothing more than just a blur of bad memories with a few happy moments mixed in. I don’t really care to worry about who I was and why it turned me into the person I am now. As far as I’m concerned, I’m the person I’m supposed to be. Who needs to worry about why I am the way I am when they can just know that I am the way I am and get over it?_

_I just wish that Cynthia would understand that. I don’t care about who I was, I just want her to understand that who I am now is who I am._

_I don’t really know what I want, Emil, I just know that I want it. I guess suicide is what I want, and I finally have found a way to get it._

_There’s a pill bottle that Cynthia and Larry don’t know I know about. They ‘suicide-proofed’ the house since my last attempt, so they keep anything sharp or deadly locked away so I can’t get to it – or even find it in some cases. They got rid of a lot of other things that they could do without that I might hurt myself with, probably the only sacrifice that they’ve ever made for me. But, I guess that no one thought about moving Larry’s sleeping pills. I checked and there’s enough pills in there to allow me to overdose pretty quickly._

_So, I guess I’ve picked my place of death, and now I’ve picked my cause of death._

_I have one week left, and then everything will end. It’ll all be over._

_And how much they’ll mourn._

_9-8-17_

_Tomorrow’s the day, Emil._

_Can you believe it? Most people go their whole lives not knowing when they’re going to die. They could die in a car crash, or Squip failure or some freak accident with something that wouldn’t normally be deadly. But dying by your own hand is something liberating. You control everything. You brought yourself into the world and you’re also able to take yourself out of it._

_Or I hope it’ll be as liberating as I think it will be. My last attempt was kind of painful, and all of the blood was sickeningly warm and wet. Bloodstains are hard to get out of cloth, especially white towels. And who would have guessed that blood could stain porcelain? The other down side of a failed suicide attempt other than the blow to your pride is the fact that you have to clean up the mess you’ve made. But then you fully go through with it, someone else cleans up the mess for you._

_I just know that anyone reading these logs once I’m gone is going to think I’m crazy or something. I’m not crazy, so much as looking for control over my own life. I guess that’s some reason to kill yourself, although I’m guessing other suicidal people have different reasons._

_Loneliness, bullying, fear, feeling of helplessness, those are normal reasons for suicide. And my reason? Well, I don’t think I have a reason, really._

_Well, the feeling of helplessness might fit for me. But, really, I just want out. I don’t want to be a part of this family, a part of this world any longer. I’m a loner and an outsider no matter what for as long as I live, so there’s no reason for me to stick around just to be alone all of my life._

_So, I guess that’s what Cynthia and Larry will tell the police when they come to question them as to why I’m dead. That or the drugs or the depression, or they might even make something up just to get the cops away from them. But it won’t matter because I’ll be gone anyways. Tomorrow night everything will change, and it will all be because of me._

_Are you ready for this new world, Emil?_

_9-9-17_

_I saw Evan Hansen today. I guess he’ll be the last person I have friendly contact with before my death, which seems fitting. We’re both so fucked up, we can’t have the social symbol of the last hundred years in our heads. Maybe that’s why he’s one of the few people in the school that I can tolerate. Whatever, it doesn’t matter._

_I signed his cast and told him that we can pretend to be friends. Well, I guess we won’t be able to pretend for long, I’ll be dead soon. And, once I am, I worry about my family descending down on him like vultures, looking for some kind of answer as to why I’m dead. He won’t be able to give to explanation, of course, but he’ll try. I guess that is Evan Hansen’s trademark, always trying to do something to make things better even though he knows he’s only making things worse._

_I feel kind of bad for him. But, at the same time, I’m sure he’ll be able to take care of himself. The kid seems pretty helpless, but I’m sure that he’ll pick himself up and try to help out my ‘grieving’ family._

_I hope, at least._

_Well, I guess I should work on my note now. Because that’s what people do when they do this, right? They leave a note, they leave something behind so that the people who made this happen to them will live with the knowledge that they drove someone over the edge for the rest of their lives._

_So, here goes:_

_I killed myself, and I do not regret it. This whole journal is my note. There wasn’t one event that led up to this, but a million little moments that eventually drove me over the edge and led up to this moment. So, to anyone who knew me and cared for me (or hated me) this is the reason why I did it._

_All of the reasons are in these words. So, if you cannot find a way to look through this book can glean something from these words, then just ask my classmates for some answers. I’m sure they will each have their own theories, and I’m sure you’ll be able to sleep better with those theories than with the truth anyhow._

_This is Connor Murphy, signing out for the last time._

_Goodbye, Emil._

* * *

 

Dear Evan Hansen,

 

    Today’s going to be a good day, and here’s why. Because today can’t be as terrible as yesterday, can it? I mean, you got chased by a child and his dog after you accidentally scared him and made him drop his ice cream. Then his dog bit you and it really hurt, but don’t worry, the dog had had a rabies shot. And it really sucked most of all because that was a nice-looking dog, he didn’t seem like he was aggressive. He was a good-looking dog.

     You didn’t even mean to sneak up on them, it just kind of happened. I mean, who sits at a picnic table when there are trees around? You just didn’t see him, and he didn’t see you, but he jumped and then he dropped his ice cream and then he got really angry instead of sad – which might have been a blessing in disguise, I hate it when people cry – and then he chased you down that really long field. The same field that wildflowers bloom in in the spring.

    But not to say that the kid and the dog wouldn’t have been nice if not provoked. And I’m sure that the kid didn’t mean the rude things he was yelling after you, what kind of child know words so vulgar as that, what were his parents doing when they allowed him to speak so openly with so many curse words. But things could have been worse. At least you’ll probably never see them again, unlike the people at school.

    I mean, this is going to be a good year, right? When you go back to school you’re going to confront Zoe, you’re going to talk to her and tell her how you feel. You know the plan that we had all those months ago? Just walk on up to her after jazz band and tell her how you feel, but try to be causal about it, like it was no big thing that you’re there and meeting up with her. Even though your insides are melting because of her _smile_ and the way that her clothes look on her, and the way that she carries herself is like a fairy tale princess who wears band t-shirts.

    Then you’d talk to her and ask her out, and everything would be perfect, without anyone interrupting or butting in at inconvenient times. Even though she’ll probably laugh at you and tell you that she doesn’t like you. That she’s never liked you, and that she thinks you’re a loser. But she would never call you a loser, because you’re not! No, you know about trees and forests and stuff. And who knows, maybe that kid and his dog would have liked you if you have just walked up to him and talked to him without sneaking up on him by accident at the picnic tables.

     You’ll never know until you talk to him and try to have a conversation. I guess just stepping into the sun and allowing people to see the real you might be a good idea. Well, kids anyways. They don’t judge as much as adults, and they can be nice sometimes. Sometimes.

 

Sincerely, Me.

 

 

Dear Evan Hansen,

 

     Today was. . . Yikes. Just, yikes.

     You did it, though! You did the thing Mom asked you to do, you finally called the pizza guy and got yourself dinner! You ate, and that was good, I guess. But when they asked for the money you forgot where it was (even though it was in your pocket) and you panicked and ran around the house and almost started crying (you don’t call it crying until the tears start falling down your face) until you remembered it was in your pocket. Then, when the pizza guy asked if you were okay, you wanted to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ at the same time and it came out as ‘nes’, a word that isn’t really word.

     But, you didn’t mess up taking the change from him! Because you didn’t take the change and gave him an $8 tip. He seemed pleased at that, and you didn’t have to take any of the money back, which was perfect! I mean, you have to give yourself some credit where credit is due. Like citing sources in English class. And everything was going awesome! I mean, things rarely go awesome, but things were going awesome right now.

     Then you opened up the pizza box and saw that the pizza guy had given you the wrong pizza, but he had already left your house. Now the question was to either take the pizza and eat it, or wait for the delivery guy to realized his mistake and come back for the pizza to switch it out with the correct pizza. The correct pizza you ordered was sausage and mushroom, not a meat lover’s ultimate rising crust pizza with a bacon stuffed crust.

     Not that it didn’t look amazing! But, you would have felt wrong eating someone’s else’s meal. So, instead of just calling back or anything you waited until you knew the pizza place would close before even thinking about eating the pizza, making your stomach feel like it was eating away at itself. After three hours of waiting, the pizza place was closed so you walked over and tried a piece of the pizza, tentatively sniffing it before putting it in your mouth.

     But it tasted amazing, so no worries. You ate half the pizza in a short period of time, it was so good. After 20 minutes, the pizza was gone and so was your hunger. Everything was going just perfectly, getting the wrong pizza didn’t seem to be such a bad thing after all.

     Until you started to feel sick. After a quick Google search and many a trip to the bathroom, you concluded that you had gotten food poisoning from the pizza’s meat. Or, at least, you assume it was the meat, it could have been anything on the pizza, according to the articles you read on the Internet. So, now you just have to get over this sickness, but not before writing yourself a letter about it.

    Hopefully the next pizza you order won’t be the wrong one and won’t make you sick.

 

Sincerely, Me.

 

 

Dear Evan Hansen,

 

     Today is going to be a good day, and here’s why. The reason is. . . School is in a week? That’s a thing, right? Yeah, it’s a thing, a reason to be happy. It means going back and seeing people in my normal routine of your day, which is good! Then you can make some friends, friends are always good to have around. Well, you have Jared, Jared is great! He’s a friend, and a family friend, which is even better! Which means that you have two boxes checked off instead of just one!

     He needs me for his car insurance, I tell my mom he’s nice and he sticks around. So, I guess that’s friendship? Yes? No? Whatever, we still see each other at school and I’m nice to him in the hallway and stuff. But, other than that, we never really spend time together outside of school. Jared always says it is because he always spends time with girls after school, and he doesn’t want me around when he’s with his girlfriend. But I’m beginning to think he doesn’t have a girlfriend.

    Which is so rude, to doubt him, I know! But it just seems odd that I’ve never met her, and I’ll never be able to meet her. I’d love to meet her, it would be a bonding experience for Jared, and his girlfriend and I! Jared won’t even tell me her name, though, so that sucks. But I’m sure I’ll meet her one day.

    I kind of wish that I could make it that far with Zoe. I’d love to be able to get close enough to her to call her my girlfriend, she’s so amazing. She’s talented and smart and pretty and she’s so confident. She doesn’t care what other people think, she just goes out and does and achieves even when people think she can’t do it. And she’s _so good_ at playing guitar, it is amazing to listen to.

     She has a bright future, and I’d give anything to be a part of it. Well, not _anything_ , I don’t want to sell my soul or anything along those lines. But I really hope the we somehow are able to hang out sometime, I don’t care what the excuse is. Well, someone’s death would be bad, I don’t want anyone to die so I can see Zoe, but if that happens and she needs my help to get her through the sadness of losing someone, then I will be there for her.

     Now I sound like a murderer. But, don’t worry, Evan, you’ll have a good day today. And a great schoolyear, and don’t sweat the small stuff, like sweaty palms. Because you don’t have to stress about that kind of stuff all of the time, so you won’t stress about it.

 

Sincerely, Me.

 

* * *

 

 

 **Squip Messaging App** (SquipTech version 5.6)

Subject: I need your help

Participants: Alana Beck, Zoe Murphy

Timestamp: 9-12-17, 8:31 PM

 

Zoe: Alana, I need your help, bad.

Zoe: Also, I need you to keep an open mind, that’s really important too.

 

Alana: What’s up? *open mind activated*

 

Zoe: I need your professional advice on something. Can a person be a Squip after they die? If they commit suicide does it affect them becoming a Squip after they die?

 

Alana: Zoe, are you talking about Connor? Look, I know that it hurts that he’s dead, but I don’t think that he can come back as a Squip.

Alana: Unless you mapped his personality and figured out how to code that into a Squip, which could be risky.

 

Zoe: So, it’s pretty much impossible?

 

Alana: Yes, it is impossible for the dead person to just appear as a Squip after they’ve died, they would have had to be monitored and written about so that they could have a Squip ‘just like’ them made.

 

Zoe: What if someone did come back as a Squip? Without all of that being done?

 

Alana: Zoe. . .

 

Zoe: Please, Alana. Just humor me and answer my questions and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.

 

Alana: Once again, impossible. Unless they were a Squip their whole ‘life’ (quotations because Squips don’t really live, because they’re not human), but that wouldn’t be possible.

 

Zoe: Why not? Couldn’t a Squip be a person, I mean they can speak and think like people, right?

 

Alana: Squips aren’t full AI, they cannot feel pain or any emotion. Not even Danny, one of the most high-tech Squips in the world, can feel anger or happiness or sadness. He’s emotionless, or else he could make choices that could put people in danger. He can ‘empathize’ to emotions, but he can’t feel them.

Alana: And Connor felt emotions, therefore he cannot be a Squip/human implant

 

Zoe: You’re 100% on that?

 

Alana: I’m assuming you have some kind of opposing evidence?

 

Zoe: _Evan Hansen_ has the opposing evidence inside of his head, under the name ‘Franta’. Connor is inside of Evan’s head, and no one knows how or why this happened. But based on what the records show, his Squip showed up almost exactly as Connor’s time of death.

Zoe: Evan, who can’t have a Squip, gets a Squip that looks like Connor right after Connor is dead. It just doesn’t make any sense, there’s something more going on.

 

Alana: This is a joke

 

Zoe: [sent an image]

Zoe: No picture, no proof. That’s a rule of the Internet, and I have a picture and I have proof.

 

Alana: This _looks_ like Connor, but how can we know it is really him? Evan could have just gotten a Squip and made it look like Connor, it could be a new model that someone who couldn’t tolerate the older version of a Squip would be able to use.

 

Zoe: [sent a video]

Zoe: That’s ‘Franta’s’ speech pattern, and it is exactly like Connor’s.

 

Alana: That speech pattern could also be coded on top of a normal Squip speech pattern. I don’t know what to say, Zoe, there just isn’t anything here to conclusively say it is Connor or not.

 

Zoe: Then come and see him for yourself, please. Also, Connor couldn’t have a Squip either.

 

Alana: I still don’t know what to say. I mean, it could be something, but I really doubt it.

 

Zoe: Alana, you and I are friends. So, I need you to help me out with this, you and I need to figure out how this is possible

Zoe: Please, Alana. Do this for me, do this for Connor

 

Alana: I don’t know, Zoe. There just doesn’t seem to be any evidence for or against, this is just plain weird. Can’t we just end it there?

 

Zoe: Then be a doubter! Just come with me, help me get some answers. We all deserve some answers

 

Alana: Are you asking me to hack into something? Because one of the other rules of the Internet is that the Internet is not your personal army.

Alana: I know my 4chan history, too, Murphy ;)

 

Zoe: Okay, so the plan is to seal lots of documents from my father’s study

 

Alana: HOW DID THIS GO FROM TALKING ABOUT THE RULES OF THE INTERNET TO COMMITTING CRIMES?! I’M NOT GOING TO HELP YOU SEAL PERSONAL PROPERTY!!

 

Zoe: Calm down, we’re only stealing things that belong to us in the first place. Birth records, records of illnesses and expenses spent on certain people and certain things.

 

Alana: No!! NO, heck no!

Alana: I’m not going to steal things from anyone, much less your father! Zoe, your father is a very powerful man.

Alana: Plus, this is, you know, ILLEGAL!!!

 

Zoe: I told you, calm down. I’m breaking into my own house, this isn’t some kind of WikiLeaks thing

 

Alana: First of all, WikiLeaks is dead. Second of all, Julian Assange is also dead. Third of all I’M NOT HELPING YOU COMMIT CRIMES!

 

Zoe: Alana, this might not be legal, but we need answers. My father was not a good man, and he was not a truthful man. We have to bring him to justice, we have to get justice for Connor, even just a little bit

Zoe: Please, Alana

 

Alana: Zoe, this is asking a lot of me. People distrust me already because I’m not like everyone else, and I don’t know if I want to end up getting in trouble for this

 

Zoe: I know what I am asking. But I really need your help. I wouldn’t come to you if I thought that you couldn’t do it. Please, Alana

 

Alana: *sigh* you’ve worn me down, Murphy. I’ll help you, but I have one condition.

 

Zoe: Anything

 

Alana: If one of us doesn’t take any fall for this, one of us doesn’t take any fall. If we all go down, we all go down, but if only I go down, go and have a happy life.

 

Zoe: You want us to abandon each other? Alana, that doesn’t sound like you

 

Alana: No, I want to know that you’ll do what is right to protect yourself if anything were to happen to me or vice versa.

Alana: It would just make me feel safer that I’m only digging my own grave, and not both of our graves

 

Zoe: But I don’t think we’ll get caught

Zoe: And, even if we do, it isn’t like we’re going to get shot or anything. We’ll just get caught, and we’ll deal with the repercussions, whatever they may be

 

Alana: Okay, I agree to these terms.

Alana: What do I do with this chat? Need me to delete it for good? It’ll only take a few minutes

 

Zoe: That would be awesome. And tell Danny I say hi, it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. Rose says hi, too, by the way

 

Alana: Danny says hello, too.

Alana: This whole chat will be deleted in about two minutes. Any last words?

 

Zoe: Nope, I think I’ve said all that needs to be said

 

Alana: Are we going to meet with anyone else for this mission?

 

Zoe: Evan Hansen, Connor (as his Squip) and Jared Kleinman.

 

Alana: Jared Kleinman? Why him?

Alana: He just doesn’t seem like an obvious choice, not that he doesn’t have a few good qualities, like he’s very forward with people.

 

Zoe: Long story. I’ll tell you next time we see each other at school, I don’t want to even think about typing it all out right now.

 

Alana: Sounds good. This chat is just about deleted.

 

Zoe: See you at school, Alana.

Zoe: And thanks again, I don’t know what I’d do without you.

 

Alana: *hair flip* I’m pretty great I know, lol

 

Zoe: Did you just a century old text expression?

 

Alana: Yeeeeep. Ready to get kicked off of the chat in

Alana: 3

Alana: 2

Alana: 1

 

[ERROR 404: chat not found]

[ERROR 404: chat not found]

[ERROR 404: chat not found]

[Exit chat?]

[Chat exited]

 

* * *

 

 

 **Squip Messaging App** (SquipTech version 5.6)

Subject: Connor Murphy is not dead

Participants: Jared Kleinman, Larry Murphy

Timestamp: 9-12-17, 5:58 PM

 

Larry: You said you had something you though I’d want to hear about?

Larry: Speak up fast, kid, my time is valuable. I don’t have time for jokes, I have a mess on my hands right now

 

Jared: i thought that you might like that your son is a squip and living inside of the head of on my classmates, Evan Hansen

 

Larry: How did you find out about this? Did Connor or Evan tell you this directly, or is this speculation? I don’t have time for speculation, I need proof.

 

Jared: i found out when your daughter started plotting to break into your study and steal documents about Connor because she didn’t think that it would be normal for him to be a human and a squip. she wants to take birth records that Connor had and anything that could show that he is or isnt really a human

 

Larry: So, there’s an idea to steal what is mine in a desperate attempt for answers, huh? Are you involved in this plot? What do you want, kid, hush money? I’ve got enough of that, if you’re willing to play my game.

 

Jared: no, no money. i told you for a different reason. first because you should know and second because i want legal custody of my little sister. i want to us to be able to live without our parents in a different town, maybe

 

Larry: That’s not something people usually ask for. I take it the police reports about your parents are correct? Your family has money, but not a good set of morals. I mean, your mother seems to wear long-sleeved clothes for a reason.

 

Jared: you werent very surprised when i told you Connor is a squip. . .  did you know?

 

Larry: Let’s just say that I have the opportunity to raise an AI as my own to see how the AI would deal with normal emotional and physical stimuli that human children and teenagers go through to understand how personalities are built.

Larry: Every action has it’s equal/opposite reaction, and Connor’s death has set off a chain reaction. A chain reaction that needs to be stopped, as soon as possible before anyone get hurt.

Larry: And use correct grammar, would you? It isn’t that hard to spare the extra couple of seconds to make your messages readable.

 

Jared: So, you knew he wasn’t human, and you had something to gain from it? Do you have something to gain if he’s inside of Evan Hansen’s head?

 

Larry: I have nothing to gain if Connor is anywhere but in a controlled environment and under my watchful eye. Software like that requires _care_ , much more than Mr Hansen would be able to supply. We’re talking about a full AI program here. A full AI program that makes irrational choices and can’t control his own emotions, there’s no telling what he might do if faced with death again.

 

Jared: I thought that Squips weren’t full AI

 

Larry: That is why Connor is so different than any normal Squip. He’s a full AI, which means that the longer he’s inside of your friend’s head the more opportunities he has to hurt Evan or get him into danger. Connor may rely on emotion to make decisions that normal AI that don’t have a full mind wouldn’t have made.

 

Jared: First of all, Evan and I aren’t friends. We’re family friends, it’s totally different. And, secondly, what can I do to make sure I have guardianship of my sister? Remove Connor forcefully from Evan’s head? Send in some kind of virus?

 

Larry: Go with my daughter on her excursion. Make her believe you’re on her side, then come and meet me after the ‘mission’. We’ll talk about what you can do for me from there about what you can do for me.

Larry: Do _not_ try to agitate or excite Connor, the consequences could be dire. He may hurt Evan without knowing or without trying, and the software used to create Connor is very advanced and it would be a shame if you were to damage it.

Larry: When does my daughter plan to seal my personal property?

 

Jared: The mission is supposed to take place on Tuesday night, at about 7 o’clock, according to what she’s told me so far

 

Larry: Okay. Then, meet me once you’re done at the Mermaid Café. We’ll talk about my terms from there. But make sure that your Squip is getting footage of Zoe and whoever else stealing those documents. Without that footage, everything could fall apart.

 

Jared: Got it. What should I do if I get found out?

 

Larry: Don’t get found out. And make sure that Evan stays out of danger. Or else Connor might cause severe bodily harm to him, and no one wants that.

 

Jared: I’m encrypting and storing these logs on multiple SD cards

 

Larry: You don’t have to worry about me not following through, Jared. I wouldn’t lie to you, I trust you. I think you’ll find that this partnership we have will be very beneficial to you and your life plans. Have you ever thought about working for SquipTech?

 

Jared: _Every_ kid thinks they’re going to grow up and work for SquipTech. But I think I can hold my own in the real world, though the job offer is nice

 

Larry: I’m just looking out for my own, Jared.

Larry: Have a good night, and if any word of our agreement gets out, there will be dire consequences

 

Jared: I promise you, there will be no word of this discussion being said. As soon as our deal is done I’ll wipe the drives and it’ll all be over.

 

Larry: Let’s hope you make good on those words, son.

Larry: I’d hate to see your perfect record get botched up by a breaking and entering charge, with a charge of theft on the side for good measure. You’d never be able to take custody of Ella then.

 

Jared: Message received

 

Larry: Good.

 

[Larry left the chat]

 

[Jared left the chat]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story relies on a lot on dates (which I am terrible at remembering, heh) so I just wanted put the story's timeline into perspective:  
> Connor died on Friday, September ninth, at about 3 am  
> Evan got Connor as a Squip at around the same time, give or take a few minutes  
> Evan and Zoe met up with each other the following Monday, September the twelfth


	10. I Want To More Than Survive (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor and Evan follow Jared after he leaves the Murphy house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really hard to write (and I had to use different search engines to post it, another reason why I hate Internet Explorer) and I had to keep taking parts out (believe me, they were bad parts that really should have never been a part of this story).  
> I spend the last week on vacation, which means I was super stressed almost all of the time and I had no time to sit down and write another chapter of More Than Survive, so this chapter is kind of late. But it's still here, and that's what matters.  
> Enjoy!

“Connor, I really don’t think we should be doing this.”

 

     “Shut up, Hansen.” Connor’s voice was acidic and rude, but still quiet. He didn’t want Jared to hear us, even though he was out of earshot. I rolled my eyes at Connor’s response, he was always like this it seemed. “Just keep following him. We need to see where he goes. I don’t trust him, and I’m not usually wrong about people.”

 

     I sighed and kept walking, keeping Jared half a block in front of me. I had shed the bright yellow poncho a while ago, and now I was completely dressed in black cloth that helped me to blend into the darkness that surrounded me. As long as Jared didn’t look back at me and try to find something in the background, he wouldn’t see me. Which was perfect, because I didn’t want him to see me and then ask me what I was doing and why I was following him.

 

     And I wasn’t sure how happy Jared would be to hear that I was following him because Connor had told me to.

 

     “But what if you’re wrong?” I asked for the millionth time, cocking my head to the side. Connor let out an exasperated growl when I asked the question again, and his eyes clouded over again. “What if he’s just going somewhere for some food or something? He could just be making a quick run to pick something up before he goes back home.”

 

     “At night, during a rainstorm?” Connor bit back at me, his words short and minced. “Without calling a taxi? Or calling on his Squip for help? No, it just doesn’t all add up, none of this makes any sense. There’s something going on, I just know it.”

 

     “Okay, okay.” I got quiet as Connor answered my question in the same way that he had answered all of my other questions: by bringing up facts that were strange, but that didn’t really mean anything unless they were lined up together, one right next to the other. “You have a point, this is strange.”

 

     “Very strange.” Connor nodded in agreement and I held back a sigh. Why was it that Connor had to be so rude, bossy and cocky? Couldn’t he just choose two of the three vices and give the world a break? Why did he have to be all three at the same time?

 

     The rain had died down around us, and it wasn’t even sprinkling anymore. Part of me wondered how much more water was even up in the clouds above my head, there couldn’t be anything up there to give another huge rainstorm, it had already rained like crazy before. I wished that I could get home quickly before Mom did, or else she might think that I had snuck out and done something stupid (which I had, but this was something stupid with a good reason, not just mindless teenage tricks).

 

     My shoes were soaked again from walking in puddles and Connor’s clothes were also pretty wet. The cold and wet were seeping through my skin and it made me shiver down to my bones whenever a cold wind blew near me. I could only imagine the cold that I would get in the morning, but I hoped in vain that it wouldn’t be too bad. The last time that I had gotten a cold, I had had to stay home for a day because I couldn’t shake the headache that I had gotten.

 

     I shook myself from my thoughts for a second and looked ahead of me, trying to study Jared again before he got to where he was going. He was still dressed in the same clothes that he had showed up to the Murphy house in, he either didn’t mind the cold or he just couldn’t be bothered to care. His hair was plastered to his head, his shoes were beyond soaked and everything about him just screamed cold and wet. I couldn’t tell which option was more viable when it came to Jared (though I guessed that he was privately complaining to Quinn in his mind).

 

     Jared, who had stayed on the same street for most of the trip (so far, I had been tailing him for about three minutes), took a turn. My heart dropped out of my chest and I ducked down so that he didn’t see in the corner of his eye. I took cover behind some bushes, and I waited and counted to twenty twice in my head.

 

    “I think it’s safe to get back up and go after Jared again, Hansen.” Connor’s voice snapped me out of my counting, and I rose gently up to my feet again. I tossed a tentative look over the top of the bush, trying to gauge if Connor was correct or not about how safe it was to keep on following Jared.

 

    I didn’t see him, and I gracefully stepped over the shrub and kept up a brisk pace to be able to keep up with Jared, I didn’t want to lose him and then have Connor yell at me.

 

     Jared was once again in my field of vision, and I saw that we were now in downtown Joliet. The small shops that Joliet had were all lined up here, and they were almost all closed. The town square, which was lined with trees and shops that were actually pretty nice, was the crown jewel of the town. It was late on a Tuesday, no one was still out and about right now. Well, other than Jared Kleinman and a few people who were sitting the Mermaid Café.

 

     The Mermaid Café was the best places for coffee and food in all of Joliet. Not that that was a huge accomplishment – Joliet is relatively small town. The coffee was already fresh, and always imported using fair trade. The owner was a huge environmental nut, and would fly the ecology flag all year. He was also a huge believer in human rights, and would often host large gatherings for activists, of which Joliet had a few.

 

     Jared looked to his left and his right before entering the café, but I was able to duck down before he looked behind himself and saw me. I was able to take shelter behind another bush, but this one didn’t have a dog that I could pet behind it. I stayed on the ground for a good minute before peeking my eyes over the top of the bush and looking into the front window of the Mermaid Café.

 

     The café was lit up by small, dimmed lights that hung from the ceiling and sat on top of old, well-worn wooden tables lined the walls of the café. The whole place was trying almost too hard to be trendy and cool, yet it also looked like it didn’t have to try at all. Jared sat down in the back of the café, and just as soon as he sat down a couple of girls who were sitting at the front window table moved and I had a clear view inside of the café and of Jared.

 

     “So, do I just walk in there?” I whispered to Connor after ducking down behind the bush again and pressing my back against the leafy, green plant. “Or should I stay out here or try to break into the café? I mean, I did just break into your house, I think I can break into two places in one night. The ultimate night of teenage rebellion!”

 

     “Calm down for a second and just let me think.” Connor sighed, almost sounding displeased. Had he not found what he was looking for? I wanted to understand what I had done wrong, but I wasn’t sure if asking would only make things worse. “Don’t do anything right now. But in three minutes, you’re going to walk into the café through the back entrance. Ever picked a lock before, Hansen?”

 

     “No, there’s never been a need to pick a lock.” I told the truth with a shrug. There never had been a reason to learn how to pick locks, it wasn’t like I was going to break into locked buildings or cars or anything. “I mean, I’ve seen people do it in the movies and such, but I don’t know if I can replicate it perfectly without a lot of help. But I’ll have you around, so it won’t be much of an issue.”

 

     “Well, you’ll just have to figure it out on your own because I’m going to run and camp out in the security cameras.” Connor’s gaze was focused on the cameras that were dotted throughout the café, they each were a pristine white and looked like they were brand-new, unlike all of the other well-worn features of the café. “I need to be able to look around and gauge if you can even enter that place. I can still talk to you telepathically, so don’t worry about communication.”

 

     “Telepathic communication?” I gaped, earning a glare from Connor. “I thought that that was gotten rid of _generations ago_ after all of the bugs that were found with it. And you think that you can do that _and_ hack into security cameras to get eyes all over the café at the same time? You’re still figuring out how to be a Squip, you need to think about your limitations.”

 

     “I’m state of the art, Hansen.” Connor scoffed, thinking that he could fail at what he was doing was a ridiculous idea. “I don’t _fail_ , and I don’t over exert myself, since you seem to be worried about that. I promise that nothing bad is going to happen, not while I’m around.”

 

     “I hope you know that just because you said that, things are going to go very wrong very quickly.” I buried my head in my hands. Connor had just doomed this entire mission, now everything that could go wrong would go wrong. “Please don’t leave yet, we don’t even have a plan!”

 

     “The plan is that in two minutes you break into the café through the back entrance.” Connor asserted one last time before flickering out of my vision. I sighed and bit my lip, wondering how this whole telepathic communication thing was going to work.

 

     _It works like this, Hansen._

 

     I gasped as I heard Connor’s voice in my head. His voice didn’t echo or reverberate, it was clear and precise, yet it also sounded far away and distant. I wondered if he could hear me, too. Could he read my thoughts? All of them, since I was a child?

 

     _I can read the thoughts you’re thinking right now, Hansen, nothing more and nothing less. I’m in the cameras, and this whole ‘wait two minutes’ thing doesn’t have time to work. Come in right now, but try not to think too much, or else you’ll give both of us a headache._

I nodded and looked up from the bush again, trying to figure out how I was going to get to the back door of the café. There wasn’t a clear shot that would keep me out of eyeshot of Jared or anyone else in the café, unless I was two feet tall and walked right through the back door without any resistance. I highly doubted that I’d be able to get into the café without exerting some effort, at the very least Connor was right about there being a lock I would have to pick.

 

     And I had no lock picking skills, and also no lock picking tools.

 

      I wanted Connor’s input on what to do, but I also knew that he was busy right now. I let out a whimper from the back of my throat and I tried to breathe deeply. After a few seconds of deep breathing, I walked from the bush to the right of the café. I pressed my back up against the side of the café, trying to make myself as small and out of sight as possible. It was like I was breaking into the Murphy house again, I once again coated in the familiar darkness of the night.

 

     Inching my way across the side of the building, the darkness fell over me more and more. Soon, I came up to a collection of different colored trashcans. Bumper stickers and decals were plastered on the sides of the trashcans, making them look even more colorful. Phrases about keeping the environment clean and healthy were right next to other decals that listed the proper way to jump off of a cliff (find a cliff, jump off, and pray to God it kills you before I do). Sarcasm and liberalism were mixing before my eyes, and it was almost repulsive.

 

    After walking past the trash cans, I found the back entrance to the Mermaid Café. It was a large black metal door that had an equally large white doorknob, and the colors made it seem more intimidating than it should look. The dim glow from the inside of the café shed some light where I was standing, but it was almost impossible to fully see anything that would be coming at me.

 

     As a last act before trying to open the door, I looked around the small plot of land that I was standing on. Buildings caged the small grassy plot on all sides, only a few small alleyways could allow people in and out of the ‘backyard’ of the Mermaid Café. There weren’t any bushes to hide behind back here, though I could duck behind the trashcans if I needed to. Other than that, there were no other things back here, unless the small herb garden counted.

 

     Panic flooded me for a second and I reached out for the doorknob without a second thought, when I felt the metal move under my hand. My muscles tensed and moved without my knowledge and I was throw to the side of the building again as the doorknob completely turned and the door opened. My lungs tightened and I felt my muscles tense again. I wondered dully if my muscles were just responding with instincts, or if Connor had something to do with the fact that I had just jumped to safety.

 

     The person who had opened the door was a girl with long blonde hair that looked bleached at the ends. She wasn’t wearing any makeup or crazy clothes, she had on shorts and a t-shirt that were covered mostly by a grey apron that said ‘Mermaid Café’ on it. In her left hand, she held a large trash bag and she lugged it slowly to the trashcan that was closest to the door.

 

     I inched closer to the door as quietly as I could without the girl seeing me. She seemed very occupied with trying to get the trash into the trashcan, she didn’t even think to turn around and look back at the door. She had propped the door open with a wooden block before she walked fully out of the door, so I had a way in. I bated my breath and inched along faster, thinking I was in the clear.

 

     “Damn. . .” The girl cursed, and I snuck a quick look to see that she had dropped the bag of garbage on the ground. As she bent down to pick up the trash bag, I scurried all of the way into the back entrance of the Mermaid Café.

 

     I pressed my back up against the closest wall I could find, sitting myself to the immediate left of the door. My chest heaved and my heart pounded faster and faster as what I had just done made sense in my head. I was _trespassing in the Mermaid Café._ I was breaking laws, and I was going to go and see if my friend, Jared Kleinman, was doing anything bad (which I knew he wasn’t, but Connor could be very convincing).

 

     Pressing my hand to my chest, I tried to calm myself down. I counted to ten three times slowly and I looked around the room that I was in. It looked like a mud room, with brooms and unused thrash bags and other things along those lines stored on the walls. Everything was in varying states of disrepair. The light that was flooding the room was coming from a single light bulb hanging precariously from the ceiling. The floor was tiled with grey tiles that were almost perfectly cleaned, save for the small amount of dirt and mud that I had tracked in.

 

     I heard the girl bang around the top of the trashcan outside, and panic once again seized me. I inched out of the room that I was sitting in, trying to get away from the girl when she would come back into the room. I tried looked through the doorway of the mud room to try and find a way into the café that would make it so that no one would see me.

 

    The doorway of the mud room had two different rooms open to it: the kitchen and the dining area. The kitchen was small and well-lit, there was no way that I could find a place to hide in there. Besides, there were a couple of people standing in there arguing, they would see me and that would be bad. However, there weren’t any places to hide in the dining area either. Jared was in the dining area, and who knows how many other people.

 

     _Hide under a table in the kitchen, the cooks never look down because they don’t need anything from under the appliances and tables._

Connor’s voice flooded my mind and I dashed under the closest table in the kitchen, sitting on my butt and pulling my legs to my chest and hugging them to my chest. I backed my back up to the wall, until my back was flush with it. I allowed myself to let out the breath that I had been holding in my lungs when I heard the sound of the girl walking back into the mud room. She closed the door behind her, and I realized that my only quick way out of the café was now gone. A pang of dread went through me, but I pushed it away quickly.

 

     I could hear the front door open and the welcome bell chime, but I ignored the sounds. Above me, a long conversation was playing out. I could hear muttered words as the two people talking moved around the café’s kitchen, before finally walking over to the table that I was hiding under.

 

     “I just don’t understand the problem!” A female voice cried. The voice was exasperated and saddened, the person sounded like they just need a hug. “I mean, Atom wouldn’t hurt anyone! Why can’t he be around?”

 

     I could see the people’s feet from where I was standing. One of the people was wearing combat boots that looked like they were a female cut, and they extended all the way up to the person’s knees. Their skirt came down over their knees briefly, and they almost danced when they moved. The other person had on black Converse with dirty laces and long, white khaki pants.

 

      “Jessabelle, you _cannot_ keep animals here!” A male voice practically yelled, and I heard the sound of a fist smacking the table above me. My heart stopped for a second, and I wondered how good of an idea it really was to come here and hide under a table. I almost wished I hadn’t listened to Connor. “I can’t allow that to happen in my café! Lord knows what would happen!”

 

     “Atom would never hurt anyone!” The female voice, which belonged to a girl named Jessabelle, yelled back at the male voice. “You’re such a hypocrite, Carlos! This place allows people to bring in their pets, and you won’t let your own employee leave her animal – yeah, that’s right, just _one_ animal – in a safe place in the basement!”

 

     “Jessabelle, you and I both know that we only allow animals in here to keep the people happy.” Carlos sounded like he was at his wit’s end, he was so angry he almost sounded calm. My breath caught as I realized that this was the calm before the storm. “And keeping your cat in here is just _not_ good for anyone. It doesn’t matter where he is in the building, he’s going to cause us trouble.”

 

    “No, he will not cause anyone trouble!” Jessabelle screamed, her voice reaching pitches and volumes that I thought were impossible for the human vocal chords to create. I cringed at the sound, I wasn’t sure why Jessabelle was still here. I knew that Carlos owned this place, why hadn’t he fired her already? “See, he’s fine! There he is, right there!”

 

     Wait, what?

 

     My eyes darted around to find the cat in question. If Atom was a cat that was in this place, and he was within eyeshot, he could make me sneeze. And that would be bad, because then I would be found out right away. I finally spotted him in the doorway of the kitchen. He had a beautiful coat that was all different colors, I think that that made him a calico cat. I could already feel the sneezing and the watery eyes, this was not good.

 

     “Jessabelle, get him out of here!” Carlos exploded, stamping his foot on the hard, concrete floor of the kitchen. I agreed with Carlos’ words, but not how rude he was being. I cringed away from Atom, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t come up to me and try to cuddle with me or anything. “This is the last straw! This cat has caused nothing but trouble! And, you know what, you can pack up your things and leave too! You’re fired, Jessabelle!”

 

     “What?” Jessabelle screamed, storming out of the kitchen and running into the dining area. Carlos followed behind her and I was all alone in the kitchen with Atom, and I could already hear the bad trope beginning to happen.

 

     Atom looked at me happily as he walked over to me. I tried to move away, but I didn’t know where the girl who had taken the trash out was. She could be anywhere for all I knew, and I knew that I couldn’t sneeze and blow my cover that way. Atom didn’t slow down as he jumped up on top of my knees, rubbing his tail on my nose. My eyes itched and I could feel myself want to sneeze. My skin crawled and panic – a new a different kind of panic – filled my mind.

 

     _Just stay calm, Hansen. Something is happening out here, and we both just need to stay calm right now._

 

     Connor’s voice was the opposite of calm, and I was finding it harder and harder not to sneeze. I could only think of how cliché this was, that I was going to sneeze due to a cat trying to snuggle up close to me when I was trying to be sneaky. There was the dull roar of the kitchen appliances around me, and I tried to focus on that while I forced myself not to sneeze or cough no matter how badly I wanted to.

 

      I tried pushing Atom off of my knees, but he wouldn’t budge. He just meowed and dug his claws into my flesh. I hissed in pain and remembered my fall in front of the Murphy house just mere hours earlier, my knees had gotten a little scraped and Atom wasn’t helping. Atom clearly had no intention of leaving any time soon, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could not sneeze or cough. Atom’s fur was pretty thick, and when it was right up in my face I wasn’t sure how much longer my lungs could not try to expel the cat dander in my body.

 

     _Hansen, I swear to God, if you blow our cover I am going to kill you. I will make sure you never get to achieve any of your life goals, like dating my sister. I’m not joking, I can and will keep you away from her for the rest of your life._

Atom sent a final look at me as Connor’s voice filled my mind. Atom’s grey eyes bore into my brown eyes and I felt my last hope of getting to spend some time with Zoe die. I coughed and Atom ran away from me as fast as he could, apparently getting coughed on was where he drew the line. I could hear Connor yelling very profound and terrible words in my head for a couple of seconds, but I didn’t hear footsteps coming back into the kitchen.

 

     Atom ran into the dining area, and I could hear Jessabelle and Carlos yell at each other even louder than before. What even was this day? First, I break into the Murphy house, and then I trespass in the Mermaid Café? I questioned my life silently as I coughed and sneezed while my eyes watered and my lungs felt like they were dying. My coughing fit lasted for only twenty seconds, but I couldn’t hear anyone coming into the kitchen to find out who was coughing and sneezing.

 

     Everything around me was pure discord, it was hard to believe that things could go downhill so easily when I showed up. I sighed, pushing down the nervous laughter that wanted to bubble up in my throat. This was all because I had gotten a Squip, who could have guessed that just staying normal, just staying unnoticed would have been better than getting myself into trouble.

 

     _Maybe I should have just kept on living, maybe that would have been the better choice. I mean, being Evan Hansen’s Squip is probably the most boring and annoying thing anyone could ever be fated to do._

Oh, shut up, Connor! I’m not that bad!

 

     _Yes, yes you really are. Okay, I think that things are kind of falling apart out here, so why don’t you sneak out here in thirty seconds?_

I raised my eyebrow at the request. Could the arguing between Jessabelle and Carlos really bad that bad? Had Connor found out something about Jared that I needed to see in person? Was he having a secret meeting with a girlfriend? Was Jared’s sister here? Was something wrong with Connor? Some kind of computer virus that could hurt him? Was someone trying to hurt someone else? A fight? Were Connor and Jared okay?

 

     My questions went from good-natured and not panic-inducing to anxiety-ridden. My head was spinning and my breathing became sickeningly shallow. Who was to say that something bad wasn’t happening? The thirty seconds that I had to wait were passing slower and slower and I realized something: this was the first time in a long time that I had been so freaked out about my anxiety.

 

    Okay, yes, there had been other episodes today. At the Murphy house, the slight bit of adrenaline that rushed into my blood when I left my house to be a rebellious teenager for the first time. But this was the first time that I had been so consumed by my anxiety that I hadn’t been able to think straight. I smiled dully at the thought that Connor might be helping me with my anxiety.

 

     Making small, mechanical movements, I moved out from under the table that I was hiding under. I sighed and took deep breaths as I stretched out my legs and got ready to walk into the dining area of the Mermaid Café. The girl who had taken out the trash wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and I was slightly worried about her. Had I imagined her?

 

     “Who are you?” A female voice asked me from behind. I turned around as quickly as I could, losing my footing and stumbling as I turned. The girl who had taken out the trash was standing behind me with fear in her eyes and a broom in her hand. She took a menacing step forward and spoke again when I stayed silent. “So, who are you, huh?”

 

     “I-I’m uh, I’m Connor?” I tried to make myself sound convincing, but I knew that she could tell I was lying. The girl’s eyes narrowed and she pointed the broom at me like a weapon, yet I doubted that she’d attack me. “I-I’m here to meet some-someone.”

 

      “I don’t believe you.” The girl seemed to work very well under pressure, and if that wasn’t good enough, I had already lost my nerve due to Connor’s comment and Atom showing up. “Why are you here, then, _Connor_?”

 

     “To meet my friend, Jared!” I exclaimed in a loud voice, running into the dining area of the café. Jared’s head shot up at the mention of his name, and I could hear the front door close just as I looked down on him.

 

     “Evan?” Jared’s voice sounded so small, so broken, so helpless. It sounded so wrong, I didn’t understand what was going on. “Why are you here? Did you follow me?”

 

     “You know him?” The girl asked, propping the broom up on her hip. She looked at Jared with a holy fire in her eyes that told me that she really didn’t like or believe my story, and she really just wanted to kick me out. After kicking my ass, that is. “This ‘Evan’ person, who calls himself Connor?”

 

     “Yeah, he’s a family – he’s a friend.” Jared’s voice was once again choked, and I felt something inside of me break. Something was off, and I needed Connor’s guidance now more than ever. What had happened? “I was supposed to meet him here, he’s not a threat. Really. He can stay.”

 

     The girl looked at me, then at Jared. Her eyes flicked back and forth between us for a few seconds, her expression turning from angry to apathetic. She finally sighed and resigned the broom to a neutral position at her side. She muttered something about needing to go to find her coworkers and then walked back into the back of the store.

 

     I turned to Jared, trying to get him to meet my eyes, but he wouldn’t lock his eyes onto mine. Feeling as though I had done something wrong, I pulled a chair from another table and sat down without any fanfare. The chairs and tables here were made out of bamboo, a way to cut down on deforestation while still giving people the feel and look of wood.

 

     The rest of the café was decorated in a way that was pretty basic: exposed metal pipes that carried water throughout the café peeked up near the ceiling along with paintings that were done by different people in the community. The floors were black and white tiles with different words in different languages carved into them, I could only imagine how bad it was to clean them. There was always a different number of chairs and tables in the café, to make things interesting. Today there were eight tables and two chairs at each table.

 

     “Is something wrong, Jared?” I asked, laying my hands on the table. Jared scoffed quietly and I could feel the buzz of Connor sitting at the edge of my conciseness. “Did something happen?”

 

     “Answer him, why don’t you?” Connor growled from my shoulder. He was dressed like Franta again, probably because we were in a public place. I shot Jared a confused look while Connor glared at him relentlessly.

 

     “I. . .” Jared’s voice broke, and he sounded like he had lost all hope. I looked at Connor with a shocked and hurt look, how dare he make Jared feel so bad? Jared hadn’t done anything, he didn’t need Connor or I to sit here and make him feel worse. “Evan, I was-”

 

     “Jared, it doesn’t matter.” I offered Jared a smile, cocking my head to the side. Jared looked at me like I had just told him the secret to the universe. “I don’t care why you were here, I trust you. I don’t understand why it’s affecting you so much, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m not going to press, and _neither is Connor_.”

 

     I shot Connor a soft glare for a second to tell him to shut up. Connor let out a corrupted laugh and covered his face in his hands. I looked at Jared while I tried to figure out what was going on, but nothing about what was currently going on made any sense at all. Connor was just mad – no, vexed – at someone Jared had met or something Jared had done.

 

     “What’s going on?” Anger seeped slowly into my voice, something was happening and no one was telling me what had just happened. My eyes flicked between Connor and Jared’s faces while I helplessly searched for answers. “Jared, Connor, what are you hiding? What is so important that you’re hiding it from me?”

 

      A deafening silence fell over the café. I looked around for a second, seeing that Jared, Connor and I were the only people in the dining area. I wasn’t sure where Carlos, Jessabelle or the girl had gone, but they were out and about. The other girls that I had seen before when Jared had first entered were also gone, it was just us and paintings now.

 

     “I told Mr Murphy about what we just did.” Jared whispered in a voice smaller than the sound of a pin falling. He looked down at his hands, which had a white-knuckle grip of his cell phone. “I made a deal with him, Evan. In exchange for telling him everything we just did, I would have some help getting the courts to allow me to take full custody of my little sister.”

 

     “Y-You. . .” I stammered, trying to find the words in my mind. I could barely believe that Jared had _betrayed_ me like that. Not only me, but Zoe and Alana and Connor. And the worst part?

 

     Connor had been correct about Jared the whole time.

 

     “That’s right, Hansen.” Connor’s voice was caustic. The sound was fluid and deadly, yet also fear-inspiring and unsettling. “ _Jared Kleinman_ betrayed us, in order to deal with a very shady man who will never keep his word. He didn’t even think twice about it, did you?”

 

     “Of course I thought twice!” Jared’s voice rose and anger and fear burned in his eyes. Unshed tears pooled in Jared’s tear ducts, he was so close to falling apart that it hurt me. “Don’t think I didn’t worry about what would happen if this deal fell through! The consequences would have been dire! They could still be dire for all I know, but I don’t think I can go through with it, I can’t give him all the information he wants.”

 

      “Why not?” I asked, my expression stoic. I was so hurt and angry that I didn’t know which emotion I should even being feeling, so I just choose to stick with being apathetic. “What compelled you to not fully betray us? Why are you backing out?”

 

     “Worried about yourself?” Connor sneered, his upper lip curling. Even though he was dressed up as Franta again, Connor looked like his old self with the amount of anger that was radiating off of him. “Did he threaten you? Oh, you poor baby! Or maybe he threatened Quinn? Oh, isn’t that horrible, truly dreadful, really!”

 

     “He threatened my little sister, who is nine.” Jared leaned closer to Connor so as to not yell. “It made me wonder if he wouldn’t really stop at anything to get what he wants. So, I reconsidered, but Quinn had already passed over the footage of our heist, so there wasn’t much I could do. The only thing left for me to do was say that our deal was over, and he promised to hold up his end of the deal. Now it’s over.”

 

      “So, what did he find out?” I asked, my voice was fearful and panicked. Different futures in which everyone was torn apart and accused of crimes flashed through my mind, making my head spin. “Did he figure out about Connor? Or about how Zoe, Alana and I are involved? Or anything else about guilt or innocence between everyone and what we’ve done?”

 

     “Evan, you don’t understand.” Jared’s voice was strained and broken, but he was trying his best to keep everything together. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair dejectedly as he tried to collect his thoughts. “Mr Murphy not only knew about Connor, but he said that Connor was a danger to your health.”

 

     “What?” I wasn’t able to think of a coherent sentence to ask Jared to clarify what he had just said.

 

    “Jared, what are you talking about?” Connor’s voice was deadly and dark. “I’m not a threat. What would give you that idea? The way that I’ve lashed out at you? To be fair, you’re an idiot and I hate you, what do you expect me to do? Make amends and be friends? Or are you just trying to take the heat off of yourself?”

 

     “Connor, just abandon your ego for two seconds and listen!” Jared cried, anger winning out over pain in his voice. “The point that I’m trying to make is that your father _knew_ that you aren’t human! He said that he had more to gain if you weren’t human than if you were.”

 

     “Proof.” It wasn’t a question, Connor’s voice told me that much. I knew that on the inside he was confused and pissed off at Jared and lashing out at anything that moved. I wondered if Connor would ever be able to forgive those who had wronged him. “I need some, Kleinman, before I believe a single thing that you tell me. I believe that you’d make a deal with Larry Murphy, because you are an untrustworthy little rat. However, I don’t think I understand how you could be so dumb.”

 

     “Because I have to protect my sister!” Jared spoke with enough pain and anger that any person could drown in it, yet he was somehow able to keep his head above water. “Because I know that things might not be perfect, but if I can just take care of her, then maybe the world might not be so bad! I just want to do one good thing, and that good thing is take my sister out of our bad home and to a better place.”

 

     “And you’re using the information we gathered as the currency to buy your new life?” Anger ebbed away from my mind. Suddenly I understood why Jared had had to make such a tough choice, he was saving himself and his sister, and in exchange Mr Murphy had all the cards. “You’re doing this for your sister? Nothing else?”

 

     “I’m doing it for me, too, but for my sister more than anything.” Jared nodded, the ghost of a smile flashed across his face when he thought of his sister. “She doesn’t deserve to stay with my parents any longer. And the only way to get her away from them is to take her away lawfully, but I can’t do that without being able to tip the court. Parents will always win out over a sibling, unless something gives.”

 

      “I’m so sorry.” I reached my hand out to touch Jared’s, but he pulled his hand away.

 

      “I don’t need your pity, Evan.” Jared’s voice regained its old bite. “I just need to get my sister and I out of this house and into a better place. Then I can get a job and go to school and then maybe have a normal life.”

 

     “Just because you’re doing bad things for a good reason doesn’t make the bad things go away.” Connor leaned forward on my shoulder, the rage he was feeling inside was barely being kept in check. “You’re still betraying people, you still put people in danger, and that is not right. No one who was there tonight was doing anything morally wrong. Well, accept for you.”

 

      “Connor.” I whispered, disturbed by how angry Connor was. Yeah, I was hurt by Jared’s actions, but I wasn’t going to yell at him and make him feel bad. He had done a bad thing for a good reason, end of story. “Wouldn’t you have done the same thing for Zoe if the tables were turned?”

 

     “This isn’t about me.” Connor turned to me maliciously, he was barely able to keep his anger in check. “This is about Jared, and the things that he did. I mean, he betrayed us, Hansen! He went behind our backs to sell the information that we took from Larry Murphy, and what good does it do us if we have the information while Larry knows that we’re the ones who stole it? We have nothing going for us now.”

 

      “Connor, just because he knows it us doesn’t mean we can’t still figure out what we set out to figure out.” I pointed out, trying to keep an airy tone to my voice. I didn’t want to piss off Jared or Connor any more than needed. “We’re not here to send anyone to jail or get sent to jail ourselves, we’re here to answer one little question-”

 

      “Why do you think it’s necessary to get yourself and your sister out of the home you’re living in right now?” Connor interrupted me, his voice as close to sincere as he could muster. He clearly didn’t care about what I was saying, he just wanted answers from Jared right now. “I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense. You have parents who seem to take care of you – money-wise, at the very least – but it sounds like something is wrong.”

 

      “Look, I _really_ don’t want to get into it.” Jared went from angry to defensive in a second, his shoulders rising and his hands turning to fists. “Can you just be content with the explanation that my parents really aren’t good parents, and I really need to get my sister and I out of there? My father is a menace, and my mother has stopped caring. Nothing has happened to my sister or I yet, but I’m not willing to take the chance that we could be hurt. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

 

     “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” My voice was small and soothing, but Jared didn’t look up at me. He was studying the pattern of the bamboo on the tabletop, it was very pretty. Connor was shifting on my shoulder, his need to move didn’t stop just because he was having a serious conversation.

 

     “I think that I know all I need to know now.” Connor spoke up once he was done shifting positions on my shoulder. His legs were now dangling off of my shoulder and he was sitting with his arms crossed over his shoulder. “I understand what you’ve done, I don’t agree with it, and I don’t forgive you.”

 

     “So, I think that everything is sorted out now.” I smiled cheerfully, looking from Jared to Connor as my smile got bigger. “Jared is in trouble, but he did a bad thing for a good reason so him and his sister can have a better life. And everything is going to get better, we just have to calm down and tell Alana and Zoe and then everything will go back to normal.”

 

      “I don’t think that normal is even possible at this point, Evan.” Jared hung his head and shame flooded his voice. “I can’t do this anymore, I betrayed all of you. I should have never done anything bad, but you guys would really be better off without me.”

 

     “No arguments here.” Connor crossed his arms over his chest while I looked at him with a look something close to horror. “I still don’t trust you, Jared, no matter how good your reasons are for betraying people.”

 

      “Connor, no!” I cried, looking Jared in the eyes as I spoke. “I don’t care if you did something bad in the past, you were under a lot of pressure to do something to help your sister. I don’t care if you’ve ever done anything else like what you did to Connor, Alana, Zoe and I. All I care about is that you’re going to help us now and help yourself and your sister in the process.”

 

     “You’re not mad?” Jared seemed unable to believe what I was saying. I blushed, admitting to myself that maybe trusting Jared right away wasn’t the _best_ choice in the world. “You don’t care that I betrayed you? Not even a bit?”

 

     “Don’t get me wrong, it hurt.” I rubbed my upper arms up and down while I talked, finding the repetitive motion relaxing. “And, yes, I was a tad bit mad. But you did it to help your sister, not to get rich or to cheat at life or anything. I may not agree with your actions, but I agree with the fact that you knew that something needed to be done.”

 

     “He doesn’t speak for me.” Connor butted in, his voice cruel. “I still hate you, though I now understand why you act the way that you act. But I am somewhat surprised that you didn’t sell us out for completely selfish reasons. There were other ways of achieving what you want, ones that don’t include lying and betraying people.”

 

     “This sounds like I’m having a sit down with parents who care.” Jared scoffed, trying to make a joke out of his pain. It was then that it hit me: Jared, Connor and I had never had the perfect family, not once. The whole ‘family talk’ thing was foreign to all of us.

 

      “Parents are dumb, they only serve to show us the different ways that we can screw up if we settle down and have kids.” Connor interjected, his voice sounding almost amused. “I mean, who needs people to teach us how to be good human beings, we have teachers and Squips and another things to do that part of human brain development.”

 

     “You seem to understand human behavior pretty well for someone who isn’t human.” Jared joked, and a half-smile crept across his face. Connor scoffed and bit his lip, he was slowly seeing Jared in a different light. “But, no joke at all, Mr Murphy told me that you’re a hazard to Evan’s health, Connor. Isn’t that just the craziest thing you’ve ever heard?”

 

     “Why would he be a hazard to my health?” I asked, petrified. While Jared and Connor found the concept almost funny, I was scared out of my wits. Was my brain going to cease to function? Was something really bad going to happen to me? “Like, what kind of hazard are we talking about? Like, kill me in my sleep hazard, or kill me while I’m doing some mundane hazard?”

 

     “‘Make irrational choices based on emotions that get you killed’ type of hazard.” Jared answered with a shrug. He passed it off like it was no big thing, and although I wasn’t in the state of mind to start trusting Mr Murphy, I was still mildly worried. “He said that it’s because Connor can feel emotions and is a full AI program.”

 

     “How about we maybe not talk about this here?” Connor hissed, his voice urgent. “We’re in a public place, not only that, but the Mermaid Café closes in about fifteen minutes. We should go and then maybe discuss this later with Alana and Zoe. By tomorrow they should have some more answers by then.”

 

     “But, for now, we should all just go home and get some sleep.” I suggested, trying to will a smile onto my face. I tried not to think about the fact that what Jared had just done could really hurt the people I cared about. But I had forgiven him, and that was all I could do right now. The rest would just have to pan out later.

 

     “And remember to go to school tomorrow.” Connor said, his eyes boring into Jared. Jared wasn’t known to skip school, but Connor just wanted to make sure. It made me wonder just how far the distrust was rooted. “We don’t need anyone else to know about what we did tonight, or even speculate about it.”

 

     “Sounds good.” Jared nodded as he fidgeted with his fingers absentmindedly. His eyes shot up from his hands and met mine and our gazes locked for a second as he said, in the sincerest voice I had ever heard out of Jared Kleinman, “Evan, thank you so much for forgiving me. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

 

     “Don’t worry about it.” I said in a soft voice, smiling lightly. “Before – when that girl was talking to you about me – you said that we were friends. That’s all I want, friendship.”

 

     “Then I guess we’re friends for life.” Jared shrugged and smiled lightly, getting up from his chair and walking towards the door of the Mermaid Café.

 

     I followed Jared out of the Mermaid Café, walking just a few steps behind him. The night surrounded us when we stepped out of the café, the rain had stopped and the clouds were beginning to break up. A few of the brightest stars in the night sky were peeking out from between the gaps in the clouds, they were even brighter because it was a new moon tonight. The moon wouldn’t outshine them tonight.

 

     “I guess this is where we part ways.” I turned to Jared, smiling at him one last time and waving. “Take care of yourself. And if there’s ever anything I can do – no matter what it is – to help you or your sister, please just ask. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

 

     “Thank you, Evan.” Jared offered me a tight smile. So much had happened today, he was no doubt emotionally spent. “I’ll tell you if Ella or I need anything. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at school, then?”

 

     “Yeah, see you then.” I smiled and stuffed my hands into the pockets of Connor’s hoodie, suddenly not feeling awkward anymore. This was nothing more than a goodbye said by friends. “Maybe later we’ll meet to discuss things.”

 

     Jared didn’t reply and just nodded his head and offered me a tight smile. Without saying another goodbye, Jared turned on his heel and began to walk back to where I assumed his home was, or where he would call a cab. I wasn’t sure how Jared was going to get home, but he was going to end up where he needed to one way or another. I sighed and threw Connor a sidelong glance as I set off for home.

 

     “You know I still don’t trust him, right?” Connor asked as he shifted around on my shoulder, moving from one position to another as he tried to get comfortable. “I understand his reasons for his betrayal, but I don’t support his actions and I will never trust him. You need to know that.”

 

     “You may not trust him, but I do.” I shrugged, passing Connor’s comment off as just Connor being Connor. There was no reason to not trust Jared, he had done a bad thing for a good reason. Things were going to go back to normal soon. “And, just so you know, I don’t think that Mr Murphy was right about you.”

 

     Connor was taken aback, and his eyes got wide. He cast a look my way that I couldn’t read, and he chuckled softly. Laughing in its true form wasn’t something that Connor expressed very much, he usually only laughed as part of a sarcastic joke or to make a point of get noticed. This time, though, the laughter and the emotion behind it were genuine.

 

      “Thanks, Hansen.” Connor said, smirking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to be AWESOME. Everything falls together next chapter, and any theories you guys have (which I would love to hear, by the way!) will probably be disproved.  
> So, if you're a big lover of those 'everything I know is a lie' chapters, then this is going to be awesome for you. If that's not what you love, just stick with me here. Things get much, much better in the second act, which we were currently in.  
> I just hit 600 views on this story, and I'm so happy! Thank you so much to anyone who has read or commented or left kudos! It really makes my day!  
> Have a great day, week and year!


	11. You Have Been Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After everything that has happened recently, Connor convinces Evan to call everyone over to his house so they can reconvene and talk about what happened the night before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was almost impossible to write. I've been having to do more things for the upcoming school year lately, so the time that I've had to write has been cut about in half. However, this is the longest chapter that I've written for this story (also the longest chapter I've ever written at over 13,000 words) so I don't understand how that's happened.  
> I also apologize for the many, many dashes and italicized words at the end of this chapter, but there were many, many parts of speech at the end of this chapter that needed the dashes and italicized words. It kind of reads like the text from a comic book, haha.  
> Enjoy!

“High school is Hell. But it’s even worse when you don’t sleep the night before.”

 

     “That was my least favorite part of living.” Connor chimed in, flipping his hair arrogantly. I grimaced at his gesture, there was no need for him to brag about the fact that he didn’t get tired anymore or have to go to school either. “Getting up is always the worst part of sleeping. The be asleep part is awesome, but getting up early for school always sucked. And pretending to care was also draining, I can only imagine how bad actually caring is.”

 

      “It’s like having to constantly feign interest in subjects that you don’t care about and people you don’t care about, either.” I said dramatically as I threw my body onto my bed. I hadn’t slept much last night, I had snuck back in late and I had pretty much fallen asleep in the clothes that I had been walking around in before. I woke up damp and with a sniffling nose, neither of which were very fun do deal with at six in the morning. “Believe me, apathy takes much less energy.”

 

      “Well, you should get ready to have everyone over to talk about last night.” Connor paced on my shoulder and jumped down gracefully before walking over to my night table. “A lot happened, we need to speak to everyone about it. Plus, Alana and Zoe probably have something to tell us about what they found out about me. Maybe they have a new theory, which would be awesome.”

 

     “Yeah, it would be awesome to have a new theory.” I sat up on my bed and pulled off my shoes slowly, a headache was beginning in my temples. I needed a nap, but I also needed answers. “And it would just be nice to see Zoe again. Before all of this happened – your death, breaking into buildings, learning about Squips – nothing else mattered other than getting to see Zoe at least once a day. As long as I saw her it was a good day.”

 

      “You’re so hopeless, Hansen.” Connor rolled his eyes and kicked his legs off of the side of my night table. He stared up at the ceiling and at the posters of trees on my walls, he was trying to find something to occupy himself with while he waited for me to get myself ready to have company over. “But not seeing Zoe or Alana today was kind of unsettling, I won’t lie about that. I’m sure they went to school, they _are_ the ones who said that we all had to show up today.”

 

     “It was pretty strange to live out my first normal day with a Squip at school.” I smiled at Connor, and he looked at me for a second before shifting his focus back to the poster of an oak tree on my wall. “How do you feel about the Franta persona you’ve created? It can’t feel good hiding behind a mask all day, especially at your old high school and in front of people that you knew for years.”

 

     “It isn’t too bad, to be honest.” Connor replied as he traced the outline of the ceiling with his eyes. “I mean, I just pull my hair back, remove the polish from my nails and put on a suit. Of all of the things that could have been my disguise, it isn’t too bad. I had to go through worse when I was living, Cynthia really liked to dress me up for holidays.”

 

     “I saw some of the costumes she made you wear for Christmas last night.” I thought back to the file of pictures that I had put in my backpack and taken for Zoe. I had put them under my mattress, just in case my mom came through and found them. “You and Zoe were so cute as kids, and those family Christmas pictures were some of the cutest family photos I’ve ever seen. You could have sold those to a company that makes picture frames and they would’ve loved to put those in their frames.”

 

      “Life was easier then.” Connor nodded, not denying what I was saying. He ran a hand through his hair and fluffed his long, brown locks with his hands absent mindedly. “Back when Zoe and I were just kids, when things like social status and friends and money didn’t seem to matter. But now things are different. Different in ways I would have never thought imaginable, even just a week ago.”

 

     “Time to call everyone over now?” I asked, not wanting to waste any more time that could be spent doing important stuff. Talking to Alana and Zoe was important, getting everyone to forgive Jared was important. Both things I wanted to get done as soon as possible, I just wanted to take a nap. “I mean, I say we just start up a group chat and call everyone over all at the same time.”

 

     “Okay, want me to start it?” Connor offered, a holographic screen appearing in front of him. He began to click on different options faster than I could process the words that were flashing across the screen, and I looked away to keep my headache from getting worse. “I’m adding Alana, Zoe and Jared now. I’m guessing you’ll want to type yourself?”

 

     “Yeah, if that’s possible.” I pulled my legs up off the side of my bed and sat cross legged on my bed. A holographic screen just like Connor’s appeared in front of me, with a keyboard hovering above my lap. “Are you going to be able to type, too? I don’t want to exclude you from this.”

 

     “I am part of this chat, yes.” Connor confirmed with a nod, looking back at the chat. I took that as a sign that our conversation was over, now we were going to talk to other people through the power of the Internet. Also with the power of Squips, but I didn’t want to give SquipTech too much credit. As long as they employed Larry Murphy I wasn’t sure that I could trust the company.

 

      I drummed my fingers against my cast for a second and I felt dread build in my stomach, I had never actually been a part of a group chat with friends. There had been a few times that my family did one for holidays or important events that had happened, but, for the most part, I couldn’t go on the group chats because I was sans Squip before. Now that I had Connor around, I could go on as many group chats as I wanted to.

 

     That still didn’t excuse the fact that I still wasn’t good at talking to people. My anxiety was slowly getting better, but it was a slow process of course, and I was having trouble finding the drive and the motivation to talk to people in person. Talking to people over a group chat might be the same way. I pushed away my fears and the pain in my head and I put my fingers on the right spots on the QWERTY keyboard.

 

**Squip Messaging App** (SquipTech version 5.6)

Subject: Meetup at Evan Hansen’s house

Participants: Alana Beck, Evan Hansen, Jared Kleinman, Zoe Murphy, Franta (SQUIP)

Timestamp: 9-14-17, 3:46 pm

 

Franta (SQUIP): Hey, guys, Hansen and I were wondering if you all would be up for a meetup to discuss last night, and the information gathered, in detail

 

Evan: And to also get your opinion on any new theories, Connor really wants to know about that

 

Franta (SQUIP): And, just to clarify, I will respond to Franta only when in a public place or over a group chat. At any other point in time, just use my real name

 

Zoe: You mean Connor Gerald Clifford Murphy?

 

Franta (SQUIP): I hate you.

 

Alana: I can REALLY tell that you two are siblings. It’s adorable, really.

 

Evan: Wait, Connor, that’s your birthname? Wow, why do you have two middle names? They’re both so long, why didn’t your parents shorten them up?

 

Franta (SQUIP): I don’t know, they must have hated me or something.

Franta (SQUIP): Can we just get back to talking about meeting up and leave behind the conversation about my weird name?

 

Jared: I just showed up, but I think that you should definitely keep on talking about Connor’s weird name. Or how about Connor’s weird nose? Or his huge ears? Or his annoying voice? The list goes on.

Jared: [sent a document]

 

Alana: This is a list of things you hate about Connor.

 

Jared: It’s a list of thirteen years of disagreements between Connor and I

 

Franta (SQUIP): Sweet Jesus. . .

 

Zoe: As much as I love to pick on Connor, I think that we’ve deviated off of the true meaning of this chat. We need to talk about last night and all of the new information that Alana and I found out about my father and Connor last night

 

Evan: I agree with Zoe, we all really need to talk about last night

 

Jared: Oh my God, Evan you need to calm down with your love for Zoe

Jared: You two need to get a room right now and end this whole dumb sexual tension thing that you two have going on

 

Zoe: I will kill you, Jared. I have my ways

 

Alana: Zoe and I were look at the documents we acquired last night. It was tough to look through so many of them, but I think that we did alright in the timeframe that we had.

Alana: I didn’t sleep last night, so that’s a downside. But, other than that, everything is going great!

 

Franta (SQUIP): The address is 528 West Pleasant Street

 

Evan: WHY DID YOU PUT MY ADDRESS ON A CHAT LOG THAT ANYONE CAN READ?!

 

Franta (SQUIP): Calm down, they needed to have your address one way or another to know where your house is.

Franta (SQUIP): Meet up at Hansen’s house in fifteen?

 

Jared: For an orgy, or to go over the data we found last night?

Jared: I would prefer and orgy, but I understand that most of you here – nay, all of you – are virgins

 

Zoe: And we’re supposed to believe you aren’t?

 

Jared: I’ll be whatever you need me to be, Zoe Murphy

 

Franta (SQUIP): Stay away from my sister, or I’ll hurt you in many ways

 

Jared: I’m shaking in my Heelys.

 

Alana: [sent an image]

Alana: Those are all of the organs that if ruptured or damaged could cause any human being serious bodily harm. Just don’t hit those organs and Jared will survive his beating

Alana: I’m not going to take sides, so be sure to not kill anyone, boys

 

Evan: NO ONE IS GOING TO FIGHT ANYONE ELSE IN MY HOME WHEN MY MOTHER ISN’T HOME!!!

 

Jared: What about when your mom is home?

 

Evan: NO!!

 

Franta (SQUIP): Why do you have to take the fun out of this, Hansen? Fighting Jared is a life goal of mine

Franta (SQUIP): And you do know that if I were to fight Jared, I would use your body, right? A Squip can take over their host’s body if they need to

 

Evan: I am not okay with that!!

 

Zoe: I don’t approve of this either, Evan could get hurt

 

Evan: Thank you!

 

Zoe: He doesn’t have the muscle mass to beat Jared in a fair fight, and I don’t want Evan to get hurt in a dumb fight that he isn’t a part of

 

Jared: BUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRN

 

Alana: I’m just getting myself ready right now, I’ll be over soon

Alana: I’m also bringing over all of the documents that Zoe and I looked through last night, so we can explain things better

Alana: Need a ride, Zoe?

 

Zoe: Yeah, that would be awesome.

Zoe: I’ll see all of you losers (minus Alana) in a few

 

[Zoe left the chat]

 

Alana: Haha, Zoe called me a not loser! Go me!!

Alana: See you guys soon!!! :)

 

[Alana left the chat]

 

Jared: I’m calling a cab right now, I will see you two losers soon

Jared: Don’t be doing anything gay when I show up. You do it’s bad to have a crush on a brother and sister at the same time, right, Evan?

 

Evan: EXCUSE ME??

 

Jared: Worth it

 

[Jared left the chat]

 

[Evan left the chat]

 

[Franta (SQUIP) left the chat]

 

 

     “I’m going to kill that kid.” Connor snarled and looked back at me. I was blushing like crazy, the heat was all over my face and had spread to my ears. “Kill. Him. He really deserves it, why can’t he just be more annoying so I can feel better about it when I turn him from a person an object?”

 

     “Behave.” Was the only thing that I could choke out as my blush threatened to spread to my neck. Why did Jared have to always tease me? He was like the annoying older brother that I never had (and had never wanted).

 

     “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Connor huffed, rolling over to his back and closing out the holographic screen in front of him with a wave of his hand. “I mean, we still have some time until everyone shows up. Your bedroom doesn’t have the space for four teenagers to be comfortable, so we should move to a bigger room. Living room, kitchen maybe?”

 

     “Living room would be the best choice.” I nodded, looking around my room one last time as the holographic screen and keyboard slowly faded out in front of me. My room was messy, with Connor’s clothes tossed thoughtlessly on the floor. I picked them up quickly and threw them into my hamper, and then I walked out of my room. “I don’t want Jared to get any ideas of digging through my fridge or cupboards in the kitchen.”

 

      “Teenage boys do eat a lot.” Connor agreed, amusement filled his voice. He loved to poke fun at teenagers and school and things that he no longer had to deal with in his normal life. It was beginning to become very annoying. “Where _is_ your living room? You haven’t exactly taken me on a tour of your house, but I haven’t seen a living room yet.”

 

      “The basement.” I answered as I walked down the hallway that lead to my kitchen and through the large wooden door in the kitchen that lead to the basement. I walked down the stairs and I was faced with the living room that I had in my basement. The washer and dryer were off in a separate room, but I still had a pretty small basement. “It isn’t very big, but it’ll fit four teenagers and their Squips.”

 

     My basement had three couches, all of them were in varying states of disrepair. The largest and smallest were made of a soft, faded, brown fabric that was almost always cool to the touch. They could recline in certain places, but Mom and I never used that part of the couches. The other couch was made out of fake leather, and it didn’t do anything special. The floor was bare concrete, with throw rugs placed around the room. The concrete was always cold, so the throw rugs would be there to save people’s feet form completely freezing during the winter and fall.

 

     The walls were filled with different paintings of places outside, including parks, trees and wildlife. The walls were a hodgepodge of fake wood paneling and exposed concrete, with paintings. There was primer on some of the walls, and the floor had been painted a bright lime green that was almost offensive to the eye. Nothing about the décor of the room was pleasing, but Mom and I didn’t have the time or the energy to make the place look better, and it wasn’t like we used the room very much.

 

     We only really used the basement when we wanted to use the TV, which was an older model of a flat screen. It was mounted on one of the walls, and each of the couches were angled so that we they could see the TV with the view being obstructed by any objects in the room. When one turned around, they could see the door to the washroom. On the wall, completely opposite of the TV, there was a small door that lead to the washroom, where the washer and dryer and some clothes racks were kept.

 

     “So, we’re just going to wait down here until they show up?” Connor raised an eyebrow as he looked around the basement. “What if you can’t hear people coming to the door? Or are they just supposed to know to come in?”

 

     “I hadn’t thought about that!” I cried in a frenzy, quickly running up the stairs. I leaned up against my kitchen counter, I hoped that everyone would come to back door so I could answer it without having to move too far to the front door. “I haven’t really had anyone over before, not since before my dad left. It’s been years since I’ve had company.”

 

      “Well, I guess now is the time to start to learn how to be a normal teenager with friends.” Connor set his jaw and focused on something in the back of his mind that he wasn’t telling me about. I hoped that he could tell me who was walking up to me before they were standing on my doorstep. “And, being normal means having to learn normal etiquette and social norms.”

 

     “Okay, I can learn those things, no problem!” My voice cracked slightly as I puffed out my chest and thought about all of the ways that I could mess up and trip over my own feet and my own words. It was only a matter of time before I did something really, really dumb in front of my new friends and ruined everything. “Yeah, I can handle this! No problem, no problem at all!”

 

     “Your anxiety is adorable sometimes, Hansen.” Connor picked at his nail polish and kicked his legs over the side of my shoulder. I blushed at Connor’s words. Why did every little comment about my person make me feel so weird? “But just tone it down around Zoe, okay? I don’t want her to think you’re cute, that’d just be weird if you actually dated my sister.”

 

     “Well, I really _do_ want to date your sister.” I pointed out, crossing my arms over my chest and tapping my foot in an effort to let out some of my pent-up energy from worrying. “You’ll just have to get over it eventually. I really like Zoe, and if she likes me back I’m going to pursue becoming more than just friends with her. If she’s okay with that, that is.”

 

      “And I’ll have to disconnect myself while you two are talking.” Connor grimaced at the mental image of his sister and I in the same room. I wondered in the back of my mind if this was how older brothers just usually act, or if Connor really didn’t think that I was good enough for Zoe. “Or when you’re messaging. Or laughing together. I guess I’ll be gone for about ninety percent of your relationship with Zoe.”

 

     “No arguments here.” I uncrossed my arms and traced Connor’s name on my cast and smirked, trying to remember how Connor and Jared act when they make a rude comment. Connor rolled his eyes at my words and began running his fingers through his hair. “I mean, it would be weird if you were constantly hanging around us, Zoe would think it would be really weird.”

 

      “Speak of the Devil. . .” Connor trailed off and I heard a knock at my door.

 

     “And he shall appear.” I finished up the saying before moving to go get the door. My mom and I had always starting a saying for the other one to finish, so finishing the end of Connor’s saying was almost a knee-jerk reaction.

 

     I opened up the door with a twist of the doorknob and a pull of the wooden structure, smiling when I saw Zoe and Alana standing outside. I was happy that they had showed up before Jared had, otherwise it would have seemed weird. Zoe and Alana both run up the stairs leading to my house, it was raining again. It had rained at least once a day for the past twenty days in Joliet, the people who lived here felt almost cursed with bad luck in the form of rain.

 

    Alana and Zoe ran into my kitchen without stopping once, and they ran right over to the kitchen table, where they proceeded to remove their wet clothing. I remembered how bad the cold rain had been last night, and I hoped that I was the only one who got sick, this headache was killing me slowly. And it was slowly getting worse by the minute.

 

     “Thank you for answering the door so quickly.” Alana said as she shed her hoodie and fussed with her hair. Next to her, Zoe was doing the same thing with her hair and jacket. “I didn’t want to spend another minute out in that rain if I didn’t have to, it’s really cold and I already have a sniffling nose. I guess that choosing a rainy night to break into a house wasn’t a good choice, eh?”

 

      “I guess not.” Zoe laughed, remembering last night happily. She shot me a look of gratefulness for opening the door and I smiled back at her. “Is Jared here yet, or did we beat him?”

 

      “You two are the first to show up.” I nodded, watching as Zoe and Alana shed their shoes and threw them in front of the door. Alana was wearing grey Converse, and Zoe was unlacing her leather boots from her feet. “I guess we’ll just have to wait for Jared to show up.”

 

      “Knowing him, he’ll take his sweet time.” Zoe scoffed, rolling her eyes. Part of me wondered why the Murphy siblings hated Jared so much, there had to be a reason for it, right? “He probably won’t be here for another ten minutes.”

 

      “It doesn’t matter how long it takes for him to show up as long as he shows up.” Alana spoke gently, she seemed to be very good at defusing Zoe’s anger and negative emotions. I tried to take lessons from her. “And he will show up. He’s proven himself loyal so far.”

 

      Connor suppressed a scoff, and I sent him a glare. Connor and I had no place to reveal what had happened with Jared last night, he was the one who had to own up to what he had done. I felt like poking Connor and telling him to lay off, but I also didn’t want to get shocked again. In the back of my mind, I wondered if the negative reinforcement that Connor had used was beginning to work.

 

     Zoe straightened up after taking off her boots, and she smiled at me again. She was wearing a light blue t-shirt and a pair of perfectly black jeans. She had the most beautiful stone earrings in her ears, they looked like perfect crystals and moonstones. Her hair was cascading down her back in light brown locks. Alana was in a romper; the article of clothing was the same color as Zoe’s shirt. Zoe and Alana’s socks were perfectly dry, Zoe’s socks were just a plain black but Alana’s socks had little bunnies on them. They looked like their normal selves, there wasn’t even a single hair out of place.

 

     “Hey, Alana, can I see the files that you and Zoe looked over last night?” I asked politely, trying to keep Connor from saying anything about Jared. That would have to be sorted out at a later date, now was not the time. “I’ve been dying to see them, and so has Connor.”

 

      “They’re right here.” Alana pulled the file folder from an inside pocket from her hoodie on the kitchen table that was big enough to hold normal sized pieces of paper. “Zoe and I went through them and we were able to piece together a story, but I think that we should all sit down and talk about the story together.”

 

     “How bad is it?” Connor could tell right away that something was up. My hands froze and I almost crushed the papers in my hands. How bad could things really be? Would Alana and Zoe still even be up for telling the story once Jared had told them what he needed to say? “Like, put Larry in prison bad? Or make me freak out bad? Or make the world as we know it end bad?”

 

      “Calm down, Connor.” Zoe spoke quickly and calmly, locking eyes with Connor. She wasn’t trying to be rude, she was trying to get her older brother to calm down before the news could be given. Zoe then shifted her gaze to me, and her greens eyes locked on mine. “Do you have those photos I asked you to keep? I wanted to take them home tonight.”

 

     “They’re up in my room.” I nodded, my gaze shifting between Connor and Zoe. They were so different; Zoe stood tall and proud, ready to take on the world while Connor looked almost afraid and so small, he was almost collapsing in on himself. It was a wonder what stress could do to a person. “I can go get them right now, if you want me to.”

 

     “That’d be awesome, thanks.” Zoe beamed, shifting her weight. I set the file folder down onto the kitchen table, I didn’t want to walk around with it. Already the papers had been roughed up by me, and I didn’t want to hurt them any more than needed be. “So, where is your room?”

 

      “Upstairs.” I pointed out of the kitchen lamely, almost unable to believe that _Zoe Murphy_ was in my house. And I was going to give her the tour of my house now. “I’ll lead the way. Are you coming with, Alana?”

 

     “Heck yeah, I want to see those cute pictures of Zoe and Connor as kids!” Alana grinned, poking Zoe playfully in the ribs. Zoe giggled and punched Alana lightly in the arm. “She told me all about the pictures last night, and they sounded so cute! I can’t wait to see them!”

 

     “They’re nothing special.” Zoe said quietly, trying to downplay the cuteness in the pictures. They were adorable, I didn’t know why she was trying to hide it. I guess I might have felt the same way if someone found a bunch of childhood photos of me, I wouldn’t want my friends to see them either. “But I’d love to have them back, please.”

 

     Zoe’s voice was firm enough to push me into action. I walked through the hallway and up the stairs, to my bedroom. I opened the door and Zoe and Alana were a few steps behind me, walking at a slow and polite pace. I quickly took the photos out of their hiding place under my mattress and I set them down on my bed. I wasn’t sure if I wanted Zoe and Alana to know that the best thing that I came up with for a hiding place last night was putting something between my mattress and box spring.

 

     “Wow, your room is very. . .” Alana searched for words as she looked up and down the blue walls of my bedroom. There wasn’t any light pouring in through the window, but my lamp gave off enough soft light to make the trees visible in all of their glory. “Well, it’s like being in a forest. It’s very nice, Evan.”

 

     “It’s beautiful.” Zoe spoke softly as she looked at the trees. My heart jumped as I watched her stare at the trees, she looked so pretty when she examining something and trying to think. She had the most beautiful mind I’d ever seen, and I loved her for it. “They’re all such good pictures, and the trees in them look so perfect.”

 

     “Great, now there’s two of them.” Connor sulked from my shoulder quietly. Secretly, I hoped that he was okay with Zoe liking the trees, because this was a dream come true for me. “Just give her the pictures so we can go, please? There are important things to tend to still, and we’re getting nothing done by standing here right now.”

 

     I picked the pictures tenderly off of my bed and offered them to Zoe, who took them happily. She opened up the file folder that they were held in and paged through them with a smile on her face. Alana looked over her shoulder as they looked over the pictures solemnly. I could tell by the look on Zoe’s face that something was causing her emotional pain as she looked at the pictures, but I couldn’t begin to guess what it was. So much had happened recently, it could be any number of things.

 

      Connor had the same look as he looked at Zoe, and I wondered if he was scared for her. Ever since Jared had revealed that he had worked with Mr Murphy last night, Connor had been more protective over Zoe than before. It was touching that Connor was trying to protect Zoe from things that she didn’t know were lurking for her in the darkness. I knew that one day, if I ever got her to go on a date with me, that taking care of her would be my responsibility, too.

 

     “These are cute really cute, Zoe.” Alana picked up a picture of Zoe and Alex and showed it to me, and I smiled. They were really cute, Zoe and Alex were taking a nap next to each other, Alex’s body was curled around Zoe, it was a perfect dog and girl photo. “Too bad Danny can’t see these, he’d love them too.”

 

     “Why can’t Danny see the pictures?” I asked, leaning forward slightly. Alana’s face clouded over, and she bit her lip and turned away from me. “Is something wrong? Did something happen last night after the mission?”

 

     “I don’t know.” Alana admitted, setting the picture of Zoe and Alex back into the file folder. Alana wrung her hands while Zoe closed the file folder and sent a worried look at her friend, I almost didn’t want to hear Alana tell me something else bad had happened last night. “All I know is that after we looked through the computer, he wasn’t working right. Next thing I knew, he just blacked out. I can’t even contact him telepathically, it’s like he’s just _gone_. I don’t understand how this happened.”

 

     “Is he backed up on a computer right now?” I tried to think of things that could have happened, but I was really bad with Squips and computers. I had no idea what could have gone wrong, other than the simple answer of ‘maybe it was a virus.’. “Maybe it was a virus? You could have picked up by accident, we don’t know what Mr Murphy had on those computers.”

 

      “I was thinking about that, but Danny is made to withstand that kind of thing.” Alana gave an exasperated sigh and closed her eyes as she tried to compose herself. She looked like she was at her wit’s end, I wondered how much willpower it had taken to not freak out before now. “I have a replacement Squip in my head right now, it’ll help out with the basic stuff for the next couple of hours while my parents look at Danny and figure out what went wrong. I really hope they can fix him, I don’t want to get a new Squip. Danny’s been my Squip for about five years now, the longest ever for one of my Squips. Getting rid of him would be like getting rid of a friend.”

 

      “I’m so sorry.” I really did feel sorry for Alana, she clearly cared for Danny and losing him wasn’t easy on her. She was losing someone who she cared for, and whether or not that person was a ‘person’ or not didn’t make that any easier. “If I lost Connor, I’d feel the same way.”

 

      “If I lost Hansen, I wouldn’t feel that way.” Connor interjected, picking at his nail polish again. Alana didn’t seem to feel better as a result of Connor’s comment, she just pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose while I traced Connor’s name on my cast. “I think that being free on Hansen would be awesome, no more nerdy talks about trees or dumb trips out to get information about myself.”

 

     “You wanted that information just as much as anyone else.” I pointed out lightly, trying to show Connor that I was doing things for his own sake. “And you should be _thanking_ me for helping you out. I’m not as bad as you insist I am; if it weren’t for me, you won’t be hearing from Alana and Zoe about their new theory.”

 

     “Yeah, new theory.” Zoe sighed, and there was the look of disdain and fear once again on her face. She kicked her left foot at her right foot for a second before looking up and meeting my eyes. “All I’m saying, right here right now, is that you might not like what Alana and I found out. But, isn’t that what finding out the truth is all about in the end? Finding out things you never wanted to know just to have them become wrong because the greatest truth is even worse than what you thought before?”

 

     “I guess?” My voice rose, I wasn’t sure how to respond to Zoe’s comment about the truth. All my life, the truth had been simple: just one more thing that was easy to explain and understand. But now? The truth was starting to melt, the lines between truth and lies were beginning to thin, and I was worried that soon the line would be so small that I wouldn’t be able to see it anymore. “But I think that knowing the truth is worth all of that pain that comes with it.”

 

     “Jared’s here.” Connor interjected, throwing me back into the real world. Dread built in my stomach, Jared was going to tell Zoe and Alana what he had done, and trust would be lost. Would he even be able to stick around for the unveiling of Alana and Zoe’s new theory? “I suggest that we go let him in before he complains too much and begins to bang his fists on the door.”

 

     “Good idea, I can hardly tolerate Jared when he’s his normal level of annoying.” Zoe shifted on her feet and then took Alana’s hand gently. “I can only imagine how bad a soaking wet Jared who feels like he’s been left out is going to be. Just imagine having to deal with that for a couple of hours, I’d die.”

 

     Connor rolled his eyes at Zoe’s comment, clearly not impressed by his sister’s use of a death joke. I led Zoe and Alana out of my bedroom, making sure that Alana closed the door behind her. I walked as fast I could down to the kitchen, where I hoped that I’d find a not too wet Jared Kleinman who hopefully wouldn’t yell at me for leaving him out in the rain. Again.

 

     Once I was in the kitchen, I opened up the door and I saw Jared talking softly to Quinn. As soon as Jared saw me, he snapped his fingers and Quinn disappeared. Jared, not carrying himself like his normal, cocky self, shifted nervously on his feet before stepping into my kitchen. The weirdest part about the whole thing was that I hadn’t yet heard Jared say anything rude in place of a formal greeting, which was very unlike him.

 

     “Did you have fun in the rain?” Zoe finally broke the silence, though I doubted that she understood the scope of how differently Jared was acting. I didn’t think that she even cared to notice, but I knew that Connor had noticed. “Your cab came quickly, usually it takes you much longer to show up to places.”

 

     “Well, what can I say, I guess I really just didn’t want to miss this.” Jared gave a shrug, but his voice didn’t have its usual bite to it. He didn’t walk with his usual swagger either, he had even taken to running his fingernails over the backs of his hands. I had never known Jared to have nervous tics, but I guess that I was learning lots of new things today. “So, why don’t we get started?”

 

     “Um, yeah, let’s gets started.” I nodded awkwardly, not sure to deal with the differing emotions from all of my friends. I also wasn’t sure how to deal with the fact that I could call Jared, Zoe, Alana and Connor my friends now. So much was happening so quickly, and I was having mixed emotions. “Let’s, yeah, let’s go down to the basement. Yeah, the basement.”

 

     I plastered on a smile and threw open the door to the basement and began to walk down the stairs. I could hear the tentative footsteps of my friends trailing behind me, they seemed almost afraid to step into my basement. I figured that I trusted them for it, if I went over to my new friend’s house and they led me to their basement (which is pretty much the main place that murders kill their victims according to horror movies) I would be a bit worried too.

 

     “Welcome to my basement!” I swept my arm over my basement from the bottom stair. It was somewhat finished, with furniture and a TV, but it didn’t have carpet put down or pretty paint up on the walls. There was primer up, back when Dad was still around we were going to paint the walls and make them look better, but we had never gotten around to it. “I guess we can start the discussion whenever we want to.”

 

     “Why don’t I start?” Alana suggested, holding up the file folder filled with papers that she had brought over. The file folder was slightly rumpled by me from before, but she had taken it off of the kitchen table after I had set it down. “I think that would make things a bit simpler. Then Zoe can start with her ideas and-”

 

     “Actually, I’d like to start with something first.” Jared said, using a voice loud enough to garner the attention of everyone in the room. Connor shifted on my shoulder, and I walked to go sit down on the nearest couch because this was going to be a long discussion. “And it really can’t wait, what I have to say is really important. And horrible of me, but mostly just important.”

 

     “Okay, Jared, you have the floor.” Alana nodded, happily giving up the prospect of speaking first. She sat down on the couch right across from me. Zoe sat down next to Alana, and she curled her legs under her body torso like girls like to do. “I could use the extra time to think of a better opening line, I mean the one I have now is okay, but I think I can make it better.”

 

      Fear flashed across Jared’s face for a second as he stood in place. He walked in front of the TV and stood there for a few seconds before opening his mouth and then closing it again. He sighed once and bit his lip so hard I could see blood. I wanted to help him, but I knew that this was something that he had to do on his own, there was nothing else that I could do for him right now. Finally, Jared gave up trying to muster his strength and courage and just went for it.

 

     “I talked to Mr Murphy about what we did last night.” Jared closed his eyes and clenched his fists, he looked like he was in deep emotional and physical pain. “I had Quinn record everything that happened, and I sold it to Mr Murphy. In exchange, he’s going to help me get custody of my little sister so that we can move away from our parents without having to go through a costly and stressful court battle.”

 

     “You did. . . What?” Zoe whispered, shocked as fear bubbled up slowly. “You betrayed us? For your own selfish reasons? Why are you even here, why even bother to show up when you know we’ll hate you after this?”

 

     “Zoe, he did it for his little sister.” I defended Jared in a wavering voice. Zoe looked over at me with a broken look in her eyes, she was slowly piecing everything together. “He’s just trying to help get his sister out of a bad situation, and it just so happens that he’ll have to go along with her to take care of her. He isn’t doing it for him, he swears he’s not. _I_ swear he isn’t.”

 

     “You knew about this.” Zoe accused in a dark voice, the spark of fire had created full-fledged flames in her eyes. “You knew, Evan, and you helped him, didn’t you? So, I guess I know that both of you are selfish, horrible people who just want to make your lives better at the cost of everyone else’s happiness!”

 

     “It’s not like that at all!” Jared cried, looking afraid and desperate. He was breathing quickly, and I worried that he was having a small panic attack. “Zoe, you don’t understand, I have to get my sister and myself out of that household. Besides, Mr Murphy threatened my little sister and we decided to never do business together again! I’m not affiliated with him anymore, after he makes good on his side of the bargain, we’re done. I mean that. Done!”

 

      “Why should I believe you?” Zoe spat, her upper lip curling. Alana reached over and touched her arm softly, but Zoe brushed Alana’s hand away. “I have no proof that what you’ve said so far is true, both the dealing with my father and that your deal is over. I need some kind of proof before I believe anything that you tell me.”

 

     “I have proof.” Connor spoke up, and all eyes in the room shot over to him. I racked my brain to try to figure out when Connor could have gotten proof. Then it hit me: the time when he was in the security cameras. “I have video evidence of not only the meeting, but of Jared telling Larry to fuck off.”

 

     “Okay, let’s see it.” Zoe challenged in a growl. “I want to see this footage that’s going to prove something that I’ll never believe in the first place.”

 

     Connor snapped his fingers and the TV behind Jared flickered to life. Jared slowly backed away from the TV and sat down on the only open couch in the basement, because he figured that he might as well sit alone and not cause anyone to get more pissed at him than possible. He sat down and pulled his knees up close to his chest, in a desperate effort to make himself look smaller. I wondered if he knew he was making himself look smaller, or if he was just trying in vain to calm himself down.

 

     A scene from inside of the Mermaid Café flickered onto the TV. Jared and Mr Murphy were sitting in the main view of the camera, and I wondered how much camera work that Connor had had to do to make the camera go so perfectly to hit its mark. The camera didn’t have the best quality ever, so it was slightly grainy and looked like it was barely working in SD, it definitely was HD. I hoped that the important part, the audio, would be better quality.

 

     “Hello, Mr Kleinman.” The silky smooth and unsettling voice of Mr Murphy floated out of my TV’s speaker system and I saw Connor and Zoe both cringe at the sound of their father’s voice. I felt a pang of pity for them, I had never felt afraid of my father, just sad that he left. “I’m assuming that you have the footage I asked you to acquire?”

 

     “Yeah, my Squip has it.” Jared nodded and Quinn popped up on his shoulder. She flickered for a second and then disappeared, I assumed that she had given him the video. But I knew very little about Squips and even less about file sharing on Squips, so I could only assume that Quinn had given Mr Murphy the video file. “I think that you’ll find that it is pretty well professionally taped, you put your security cameras in the right places. I was able to get the footage from two different angles.”

 

     “Well, kudos to you for using the pre-existing hardware for taping this.” Mr Murphy almost sounded pained to compliment Jared, and I could hear Connor stop breathing for a second. “I really think that this partnership could go on for a while. Next, I want you to figure out what my son and daughter are going to do with the information that they gathered, and I think that you’ll like to know that I can set you and your sister up with an apartment in a different city about fifteen minutes away.”

 

     “And you’ll help to tip the courts in my favor when I go to them?” I could hear the fact that Jared was suppressing a smile in the tone of his voice. The camera quality wasn’t perfect, but the audio was amazing, just as I had hoped. “And I’ll keep the information coming. I just need to know that my sister is going to be safe and taken care of.”

 

     “You will get the thing that you need.” Mr Murphy was done with Jared’s cocky attitude. It sounded like he was starting to have fun now, his voice hinted at his ulterior motives. “However, I would just like you to know that children, like Ella, can be very delicate beings. It would be sad if something were to happen to her if you fail to come back with the information that I need.”

 

     “Did you just threaten my sister?” Jared’s voice dropped and was almost inaudible. Fear and anger flashed across his face, one right after the other until his fists were clenched on top of the table and his teeth were almost fully bared at Mr Murphy.

 

     “I think you know the answer to that question already.” Mr Murphy brushed off Jared’s question. Jared looked almost shocked that Mr Murphy was threatening his sister, though I could also see a bit of understanding in Jared’s body language. He was expecting this the whole time. “What do you expect me to do? I have to take care of my own, and I will get my son back. I’ve sunk too much time and money into taking care of him already. And I’ll be damned if I don’t get my investment back. He will be mine again.”

 

     I felt a sharp pain on my shoulder, and I saw that Connor’s fingernails were digging into my flesh while he tried to tear his eyes away from the TV. He was sitting down and his legs dangled off of my shoulder and they were also digging into my flesh right around my collarbone. I angled my shoulder away from the TV to help him, and his green eyes shot over to me in a second. Thankfulness glistened along with unshed tears in Connor’s eyes.

 

      “Look, just give me the court swing and then we’re done.” Jared’s voice was angry and determined to end this deal right here and now. I could almost see the brotherly love mixed with the desire to kill Mr Murphy for threatening Ella. “I mean it, we’re done. You got what you wanted, and I’ll get what I need at a later date. Don’t forget about the logs that I kept. Not only that, but I kept some of the documents that your children took last night. I can leak them to your business partners and the press. Don’t under estimate me, and don’t try to hurt my sister.”

 

     “Take this victory, then, Mr Kleinman.” Mr Murphy leaned back in his chair and threw up his hands in mock surrender. His eyes were scanning Jared, he was looking for weaknesses in Jared’s façade. “But, please remember that my company has a lot of pull around the world. You might just find yourself regretting not going back into business with me one day.”

 

     “I highly doubt that.” Jared scoffed, but I could see the fear in Jared’s face. He was mortified. My eyes darted over to the real Jared and he looked pretty broken. It seemed like everyone was going through huge emotional swings due to the video that Connor had taken. Part of me was happy to see that my friends could have emotional responses, but the other part of me felt bad for making them suffer through this.

 

      “I’ll see you soon, Mr Kleinman.” Mr Murphy smiled cruelly as he stood up. He pushed in his chair before walking out of the Mermaid Café and leaving Jared all alone, for me to later find him and confront him with Connor. “And, I can assure that you _will_ regret not taking up my offer. Best of luck to you, Mr Kleinman.”

 

     Jared didn’t say anything to that. He looked broken and empty, he didn’t even react when Mr Murphy left the café, followed by a couple of teenage girls who I remembered were there on the night. Everything came back to me, the way that I had had to hide under that dumb table, only to be found out by that dumb cat Atom and having to run around and hiding from the girl who was taking out the trash.

 

     But now everything that I had gone through looked like a cakewalk, I doubted that Jared would ever admit it, but I could tell that he’d never felt so small than in that moment when he talked with Mr Murphy. To see a break in Jared’s armor was almost unsettling, he had always been so confident and cocky in my eyes, the idea of him breaking down didn’t seem possible until I’d seen it happen before my eyes.

 

    The recording cut out, and the TV screen went black. Static came out of the speakers, and it was almost nice to have some background noise to fill up the gaps in conversation, like the one that my friends and I were drowning in right now. Surprisingly, it was Alana who broke the silence by speaking.

 

      “Well, now we know that Jared was telling the truth.” Alana sounded like she wasn’t very shocked at all. Zoe, however, looked like someone had just told her the secret of the universe. “And we also have the proof that Mr Murphy is a very, very bad person. Which goes hand in hand with the new theory of why Connor is the way he is.”

 

      “I’ll see myself out.” Jared got up, and I was about to protest when Zoe beat me to it.

 

     “Sit back down, Jared.” Zoe’s voice was a growl again. She sounded like she was ready to fall apart, something about seeing Jared and her father’s dealing was too much for her, it had sent her over the edge. “You did this for your sister, and you backed out for her health. But what made you so scared? That’s all I want to know before I make my decision if you’re going to walk away or not.”

 

      Jared stopped and it was like there wasn’t any oxygen in the room for a few seconds. Jared tried to think, and I could see the fear flash over his face before he finally gave up and let all of his defenses drop. I watched as Jared turned to Zoe, his shoulders no longer in a defensive position. He looked like he had been through so much, and Zoe’s reflected that feeling right back at him.

 

      “I realized that I really messed up and that if I got myself into any trouble, like I just had, that things would get really bad for Ella.” Jared didn’t put any emotion into his voice, he was defeated and broken. “I just couldn’t think about it anymore. And the thing that kept coming up in my head was that I had bought a better life for my sister by selling you and Alana and Evan out. And I didn’t know what was up with Connor, but I was worried that you guys would never find out the answer.”

 

     “You should stay.” Zoe replied, allowing her body to fall back onto the couch she was sitting on. “You did a bad thing for a good reason. And I think that we’re already playing damage control, so it isn’t like anything could get any worse. I mean, one of us could die, but short of that things can’t get much worse.”

 

      Jared didn’t make a huge forgiveness speech or say thank you, he just sat back down on the couch that he was sitting on before. Connor had composed himself and looked back at me, looking almost happy that Jared was still around. It was funny how one event – in this case, it was Connor’s death – could bring so many people together to try and do something awesome.

 

      “Now, can I start the presentation of the new theory that Zoe and I came up with last night?” Alana stood up happily and looked around the room as the unenthused faces before her eyes landed on me. I gave her an awkward smile, but she grinned right back at me and clapped her hands loudly. “I think that I’ll cover the presentation tonight. Although I will give you all a fair warning, it isn’t super pretty or super nice.”

 

     “Shouldn’t the warnings just apply to me?” Connor fell back into his normal attitude, and I was happy to have the old Connor back. Now all that was left was to get back to the old Zoe and the old Jared and then things would be complete again. “I mean, _I’m_ the one whose life is going to be forever changed by this theory. Well, Hansen and Zoe might have some trouble adjusting, but that should be it.”

 

      “So, you’re saying I can’t use this information as blackmail?” Jared taunted, trying to lighten the mood. He gave off a cocky grin, and my spirits soared when I saw it. I was so happy to have Jared back. “That’s just taking all of the fun out of this, Connor. You know that, right?”

 

      “ _Moving on_ ,” Alana stressed, trying to regain everyone’s attention, “Zoe and I have reason to believe that Connor has never been, and will never be, a real person. Connor Murphy – the biological son of Cynthia and Larry Murphy – died when he was a child of natural causes and the Connor that we all know – referred to as ‘Connor Alpha’ by Mr Murphy in his emails – was replaced for reasons that I can’t quiet decipher yet, because they’re highly classified.”

 

     Silence fell over the room as everyone tried to soak in what Alana had just said. I couldn’t believe it, Connor had to be a real person. He had felt emotions, he had felt lonely and sad and depressed. He had felt happy, too, once upon a time. I’d seen him in those pictures from when he was a kid, a Squip or AI couldn’t feel those emotions. Or have the drive to kill itself like Connor had.

 

     “That doesn’t make any sense.” Zoe was the first to speak, her eyebrows were furrowed together and she was shaking her head slowly in disbelief. So much had happened tonight, I felt bad for Zoe. She had had to deal with Jared’s confession, and now this. “No, no, Connor’s been my brother ever since I was a little kid. I’ve never lived in a world without him, he can’t be a Squip or an AI or whatever. It just can’t be.”

 

     “Were you not paying attention last night when we went over this?” Alana sounded almost hurt. “Because we went over this for a good two hours when we were looking through the emails and the other documents. Everything was pretty clear about the fact that your real brother died a long time ago and now he’s-”

 

     “Died, or was killed?” Connor cut Alana off, his voice was almost fully devoid of any emotion. The way that Connor spoke made fear shoot down my spine, what was Connor implying with his question? A crime of Mr Murphy’s, or a crime of Connor’s?

 

     “Died.” Alana lost all of her cheerfulness, she clearly didn’t like discussing the topic of death in much detail. “He was very young, only about two years old from what the records Zoe and I looked at showed. Right after his death, Mr Murphy went to SquipTech and asked for a full AI unit – feelings, memory compacity, a personality and other human traits included – to put in a synthetic body that used the same DNA as his son. It would be the ultimate experiment, and completely out of the view of the state.”

 

     “So, what he did was highly illegal and wrong?” Jared asked, almost sounding amused. Connor didn’t seem to notice or care, or else Jared would have gotten himself torn apart in one way or another. “Why am I not surprised? Oh, and I remember that when Mr Murphy and I made our first deal he said something about needing to take care of Connor because he was not only an AI, but an experiment. I think that Connor might be one of the first AI units that can feel emotions. Also, according to Mr Murphy Connor is also really dangerous.”

 

     “So, I’m a prototype, too?” Connor sounded fed up as he looked to Alana for clarification. “So, not only did I take the place of a dead kid – a two-year-old, to add to that – but I’m a dangerous too? Okay, all of this still doesn’t explain why I’m _Evan Hansen’s_ Squip of all things.”

 

     “When you died, you only killed your physical body.” Alana explained, moving her hands through her beautiful dark hair as she tried to explain things in an easy to understand way. “But it didn’t kill _you_ , the AI that you are. So, the code that controls you panicked when your physical body died and sent you to the nearest open Squip implants, and they just so happened to be Evan’s Squipless implants.”

 

     “So, if there was someone with implants that didn’t have a Squip on them that was closer to where Connor died, they would have ended up with him in their head?” I was astonished that it was almost purely luck that Connor and I had ended up with each other. If someone else had been getting a new Squip that day, or if someone else without a Squip had been closer to Connor’s deathbed, our stories would be very different right now. “That’s kind of hard to think about. So much would be so different right now.”

 

     “Imagine Connor getting paired with another person in the closet.” A smile spread across Jared’s face as he poked fun at Connor. “Maybe they would come out of the closet together. That would be hilarious. Not to say that Evan isn’t in the closet right now, I mean, I’d love to see Connor and Evan announce their undying gay love for each other.”

 

     “Remember why you’re still here.” Connor snarled at Jared, not caring at all for Jared’s jokes about his life and sexuality. “Watch yourself, Kleinman. But, Alana, what you’re telling me is that I’m a prototype who is going to get myself hurt? And how did I control my body for seventeen years if I’m not a real human being?”

 

     “I would guess brain implants as to how you controlled your old body.” Alana bit her lip and crossed her arms as she tried to think, but I could tell from the look in her eyes that she loved the challenge. “And the idea that you could be dangerous probably stems from the fact that because you can feel emotions you can make choices based on emotions and not logic, like normal Squips do. It’s like Evan has another human mind in his head, which could prove fatal to some people. The amount of energy you use could have sent Evan into a coma, I’ve looked at the numbers you’re pretty power-hungry by nature, Connor.”

 

     “Wait, Connor could have killed me by accident?” I cried, pressing my hands to my chest as my eyes went wide. Why hadn’t anyone told me? Was I going to get myself into a coma now? Or was Alana just joking around and nothing was different about Connor’s power consumption and a normal Squip? “Or sent me into a coma? Why am I not dead? Not that I’m complaining, I just don’t understand.”

 

     “Sleep.” Alana shrugged, almost pleased by how easy the answer to my question was. Jared gave Alana a confused look, and Alana sighed and explained further. “Sleep is the time when Squips can recharge and use brainwaves – alpha waves – to recharge themselves. People who sleep at least eight hours as night have very high-functioning Squips and bodies, so I can only imagine that you get at least nine hours of sleep a night to maintain still be up and walking around.”

 

     “Then I guess that getting nine hours of sleep a night is a good thing.” I was almost happy that my constant insistence since childhood of getting as many hours of sleep as possible had saved my life. It was funny how the little things that I did were beginning to become important things. “Maybe being weird and making sure that I get those nine hours each night wasn’t a bad thing, or compulsive as my therapist said once.”

 

     “How are you able to get nine hours of sleep a night?” Zoe asked, almost annoyed that a high school senior was able to get nine hours of sleep a night. Being singled out by Zoe, I blushed and bit my lip, not totally ready to admit to my longtime crush that I had no social life at all. “I mean, you go to high school and you work, right? How are you able to maintain that?”

 

     “I didn’t have a social life until Connor showed up.” I said, telling the truth with a shrug. “That was how I could get nine hours of sleep a night.”

 

     “I think that we’re all missing the important thing here.” Connor’s voice was almost on the verge of pissed, and everyone’s eyes shot over to him. He ran a hand through his hair and bit his lip before speaking again. “Larry knew what he was doing. I’m an experiment that not even the government knows about. Which means that Hansen – and all of you – could get in really big trouble for knowing about my existence and helping me to do illegal things, like steal documents from Larry Murphy.”

 

     “So, what you’re suggesting is that we could all be in very big trouble with the law?” Zoe raised an eyebrow, not caring enough to find it inside herself to show or feel any fear. “Just because we know you, and we helped you steal these documents? I don’t believe it, we’re the teenagers who are just picking up the mess that was already caused by people older than us, we could never be convicted of anything too bad.”

 

     “It’s not like we can convince the courts – if we’re ever taken to them – that we’re completely innocent.” Jared pointed out, raising his voice’s volume a bit without knowing it as fear seeped into his conscious mind. “Mr Murphy has the footage of all of us at his house. Not only that, but he can just track our Squips. I mean, were working against a very large corporation that can – and _will_ – do whatever it needs to keep itself out of legal trouble and make as much money as it possibly can in the process.”

 

     “What’s our next move?” I wondered aloud, casting my eyes over to Connor. This was his life that was so messed up, we were just there for the more messed up parts of it, but it wasn’t our lives. Yeah, Zoe was his sister, but even that didn’t mean that they had the same life or anything. “Do we even have a next move? We have the answers we needed, so do we just give up now or what?”

 

     “We take this to the highest levels of government who will listen, that’s what we do.” Zoe stood up, launching herself from her old sitting position. She looked at all of us, and we all had varying expressions on our faces. “We need to show SquipTech that we not only _know_ what they did, but that we’re not going to stand for it! We have to take a stand and make things right again!”

 

     “How are we going to do that, Zoe?” Connor asked. He sounded tired and beaten down, nothing like how he usually sounded. He snapped his fingers and appeared in front of Zoe, floating in midair. “Jared already leaked to Larry that we’ve committed crimes too. Maybe not at the same level, but that can be used against us. We can’t just run over to Washington and expect to get everything we ask for. Zoe, we can’t do this.”

 

     “We have to let the world know what happened with my real brother and my other brother!” Zoe cried. She scanned the room again, almost on the verge of tears when she saw that no one agreed with her. I almost couldn’t understand her fears, Alana had said that the real Connor had died of natural causes when he was young. “We have to let the people who have Squips – which is almost everyone in this modern age – that SquipTech is _not_ the company that we believe it to be! We have to do it for my real brother, he has to be avenged in whatever way possible!”

 

     “Zoe, when I was talking with your mom, she told me that Connor was a very sickly child.” I spoke up, somewhere finding the voice to talk to Zoe and tell her that she was crazy and that nothing could really be done. “He had a serious disease, and he succumbed to it. And, in case you don’t think that she noticed or loved her son, she knew that something was wrong when she picked up ‘alpha Connor’, as Mr Murphy called him. She couldn’t put her finger on what was different, but she knew nothing about her husband’s crimes. Connor even made sure of it himself.”

 

    “You didn’t tell Mom?” Zoe looked at Connor with an almost wounded look in her eyes. “She doesn’t know that you’re alive? You just left her out of this, without even thinking about the fact that it’ll kill her when she figures out that you’re still alive on day?”

 

      “I didn’t tell her for a good reason, Zoe.” Connor nearly spat at his sister, anger welled up from deep inside of him. The idea of telling his mother anything to do with his new life seemed to piss Connor off beyond what I thought was possible. “If she knew, she could be dragged into this court thing too one day. Plus, she’ll find out one day. It can wait until this storm has blown over.”

 

     “I see where you’re coming from, but I still don’t think you’re right not to tell her.” Zoe sighed and laced her fingers together as she tried to think. “So, Evan, what else did you find out from my mother? Did she tell you anything else that would be of importance?”

 

     “No, not really.” I said, trying to remember back to when we had talked. It felt like it was weeks ago, but it was really only last night. So much had happened between then and now that it made it almost impossible to think about how close it had really been. “She did say that after she got Connor back – the Connor that we know – she knew that something was wrong. She knew that he wasn’t her son, and that something was wrong with him still. But she just couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong.”

 

      “She knew?” Connor sounded amazed, and almost happy. He teleported back over to me and sat back down on my shoulder, his small form was able to fit on my shoulder without a problem. “I guess that that does make me something different than everyone else. But it still doesn’t explain why I’m such a priority. There have to be other AI units out there who can feel emotions. I mean, SquipTech isn’t the only company out there that specializes in dealing with Squips and AI units.”

 

     “Well, all of the other ones were shut down very soon after they were ‘born’.” Alana used air quotes around the word ‘born’. Squips weren’t born, they were created through hours and hours of meticulous coding and trial and error runs. “They were too much like people, so they had to be shut down. However, because Connor wasn’t under surveillance by government agencies, Mr Murphy didn’t have to worry about the experiment being shut down if Connor became too human-like. Or a danger to any human life.”

 

     “That still doesn’t answer the nagging question I’ve had on my mind for a long time now.” Connor bit his lip and sighed heavily, trying to think of the best way to ask the question that was on his head. I wasn’t sure what he was going to ask, all of my questions were more or less answered at this point. “What happens if they find me? I mean is the state going to kill me once and for all? Or am I going to live a little longer under their watchful eye, or will I be sent back into the world to fend for myself?”

 

     Alana was taken aback by Connor’s question. She took a step back, and looked to Zoe with a look of fear. Zoe shrugged and gave Alana the same look. Alana fidgeted with her fingers for a second before turning back to Connor and locking eyes with him. Alana’s usually calm eyes were afraid and lost for words as they locked onto Connor’s worried and angry green eyes.

 

     “I don’t know for sure.” Alana admitted, her voice sounded unconfident and small and so unlike how her voice usually sounded. “I mean, they might run some experiments, but I highly doubt that they’ll let you go. You’re something new, an AI that’s been raised like a human. Your mental state and your personality is going to be studied for years and years if you’re found out. I don’t know what would happen, but I can guarantee it’ll be nothing good. It’s better that you stay hidden than go and try to find out what would happen.”

 

     “So, let’s just not get found out.” Jared suggested unhelpfully in his usual cocky voice. Zoe and Connor rolled their eyes at Jared’s tone, but Alana and I didn’t react to Jared’s comment. It wasn’t like he was lying or anything, his suggestion was just really unhelpful. “I think that that will be the best idea of all of us. That way Evan and Connor won’t be separated, and no one will have to dig in the Murphy sibling’s daddy issues.”

 

     “Can we please kill him?” Connor asked while pointing to Jared. His eyes darted between Zoe and Alana. Zoe nodded quickly, and Alana shook her head and told Connor no. “I mean, I don’t think that anyone would miss him. I know the perfect place to hide the body. Plus, I said please, so I think we should.”

 

     “No one is killing anyone.” I made my voice louder than what was probably needed, but I had to make sure that I was heard over any other voices in the room. “I think that we should all go home, calm down, and take the day off tomorrow. We need some time to think and process what just happened, and I don’t think that we’ll be able to process things very well if we’re busy worrying about assignments. Plus, we should all catch up on the sleep that we missed.”

 

     “Sounds good to me.” Jared jumped up from the couch he had been sitting at with a vigor I’d never seen him have. I was happy that he felt better now, now he knew that everyone in this room was his friend. Well, maybe not Connor. “Would you be willing to drive me back, Alana? I’ve already paid for a cab three times in two days, and I really don’t want to pay for another one.”

 

     “Yeah, I think that I can do that.” Alana nodded and began to walk back up to the kitchen. Jared followed her up the stairs happily, and I heard the door shut loudly behind them. They were no doubt working out the arrangements that Jared would sit in the back of the car so as to _not_ flirt with Alana, and that Zoe would not sit next to him so he could flirt with her either.

 

     “You know, this whole thing has just been crazy lately.” Zoe gave off a nervous laugh as she stood up from the couch she had been sitting on. Zoe ran a hand through her hair, giving off an uneasy laugh that bubbled in a perfect melody. “I mean, between Connor and everything else that’s been going on, it’s been really nice to know that there’s a voice of reason. Thanks for that, Evan.”

 

     Zoe threw me one last smile before quickly retreating up the stairs to the kitchen and talking excitedly with Alana. I was too happy to move, much less walk. _Zoe Murphy_ had told me that she was happy to be around me. She said that I made things better, and she’s also smiled at me! She thought of me as a friend, which was so much more than I’d ever been to her!

 

     “Don’t get too happy, you still don’t have my blessing to date her yet.” Connor growled in my ear, reminding me that he was here. I blushed and tried to apologize in a very stuttering voice, but Connor would have none of it. “I don’t care if she says yes to you, or if you say yes to her. I still don’t like the idea of you and her being together when I’m still in your head. Maybe _after_ we find a way to remove me as your Squip, you two can date, but not right now.”

 

     “Okay, then I guess that we’ll have to find a way to remove you from my head as soon as possible.” I spoke quickly and happily as I ran up the stairs to make sure that my friends were okay going home. The light from the sun was almost gone, the days were slowly getting shorter, which meant the sun went down sooner and sooner each night.

 

     “Why don’t you keep these safe for me, Evan?” Alana handed me a file folder with some papers in it. It wasn’t nearly as heavy as when she had first given me the folder, and I wondered why she didn’t want to keep the papers together. Wasn’t a full explanation of Mr Murphy’s guilt better than a partial one? “I don’t want anything to happen to all of the papers at once, so I’m keeping some, Jared has some and so does Zoe. It’ll keep them all safe in different places so that something would have to happen to all of the different locations for there to be a serious problem.”

 

     “Oh, that’s really smart.” I frowned at the file folder in my hands, why hadn’t I thought of that? Well, I guess that that was why Alana was around, to make sure that everyone was okay and that no one did anything too stupid by accident. Or on purpose. “I’m really glad to have you around, Alana. You’re going to keep us all from getting in serious trouble one day.”

 

     “Thank you, Evan, but I’m just trying to do my best to make sure that justice is served.” Alana gave a half-hearted smile, tonight had clearly made her question her loyalties and her trust in people, including SquipTech as a whole. “I don’t like the idea of someone manipulating other people into doing their bidding, like what Mr Murphy did. I think that he – and the corporation he works for – needs to be brought to justice so that the people who did bad things can face the consequences of their actions.”

 

     “I’m sure that these people will meet the consequences of their actions.” I offered Alana a smile, I could tell that everyone just wanted to go home and sleep. The rain had subsided outside, and I could tell that Zoe, Jared and Alana were happy that they wouldn’t have to walk to Alana’s car in the rain. “I mean, they will get what they deserve one of these days.”

 

     “I hope so.” Alana threw me one last smile before walking away to her car. Zoe followed her out, and gave me a small wave before disappearing through the back door and out to Alana’s car. It was almost like she was gone too soon, I felt like the moments that I had with her were fleeting. It wasn’t fair that so much was getting in the way of us just seeing each other for who we are.

 

     “I have to say that tonight went better than I thought it would.” Jared smiled and gave a cocky shrug before leaving. “Thanks for being so supportive. And you’re doing really well with Zoe, I’d love to see that happen. But I do still think that Connor is in gay love with you, bye!”

 

    And, with that, Jared left. I looked to Connor with a tired expression on my face, so much had happened. Connor still wanted to get back at Jared for calling him gay – for what had to be at least the third time today – but I knew that Connor was also too emotionally spent to go after Jared right now. I just wanted to take a nap and catch up on my sleep and never move ever again.

 

     “Okay, I’m going to skip dinner and just go right to sleep.” I announced to Connor as I walked over to the back door and carefully locked it. I pushed on the door one last time to make sure that it latched for good, I didn’t want it to open randomly. Then Mom would think that something had happened. “I don’t feel like eating, and I’m taking the day off from school tomorrow, so that’ll give me enough time to eat and sleep tomorrow, too.”

 

     “Sounds like you have what you want to do figured out.” Connor said, nodding along with my plan. He sat on my shoulder with his legs dangling down near my collarbone, while he picked at his nail polish again. “I just want to know when I’m going to finally stop looking at my name on your arm. When is your cast coming off?”

 

     “I don’t know, probably not for another couple of weeks.” I flexed my fingers and I traced my eyes over Connor’s name on my cast, I didn’t mind having it there. I smiled as I remembered Connor saying that we could be friends after he wrote his name on my cast. “I kind of like having it there. It really reminds me that I have a friend.”

 

     “We’re more forced acquaintances.” Connor replied, but my smile didn’t fade. “But yeah, sure, whatever you want to say. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

 

     My smile still didn’t fade as I walked myself up to my bedroom. I threw open the door and I looked at the trees on the walls of my bedroom. It was reassuring that no matter what happened, that I could always come home and see my trees as if nothing had changed. In all reality, I had changed so much over the past few days that I wasn’t sure that things staying the same were good anymore. I didn’t want to be the same person that I was back then, no. I wanted to grow, to become better.

 

    I wanted to grow up and become a bigger, better tree than I ever could have hoped to be even just a few days ago.

 

     “I think that too many things have changed lately, and I love how they happened.” I rebutted good naturedly as I walked to my bedroom with the file folder of the documents that Alana gave me in my hands. “Now, the only question I have right now is where do I put this? I don’t want to put it in an obvious space, and I think that putting it under my mattress would be too obvious, and that could be bad if what Alana said is true.”

 

     “Then you should put them in your dresser.” Connor shrugged, pointing to my chest of drawers across the room. “You can put them under all of your clothes, and no one will ever think to go through your dresser to find anything that they think that you might have. It’s the perfect place for hiding just about anything.”

 

     “That’s a good idea, Connor.” I quickly shoved the file folder in my drawer of t-shirts, and I dug out my pajamas and threw them on my bed before walking away from my chest of drawers. “Would you mind maybe logging off for the night, Connor?”

 

     “You don’t have to ask twice.” Connor said. With a snap of his fingers, he was gone.

 

     It was strange not having a presence in my head anymore, I was used to having Connor look over my shoulder – literally – for many hours every day. Not having him around seemed almost impossible to deal with, I had a hard time remembering a time before Connor was my Squip. I constantly had to remind myself that it hadn’t even been a week that Connor had been around, but it seemed like there had never been a time when Connor wasn’t around.

 

     After changing into my pajamas, I climbed into bed and tried to get my body to relax. Images of my friends flashed in my mind, along with bits of our conversations. I was so lucky to have them in my life. And Zoe had said that she was so happy to have me around, and I felt the same way. She was just _so_ amazing; how could anyone not want to be around her?

 

     I fell asleep thinking of Zoe Murphy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I promise something awesome for this chapter, and I hope I hit my mark. I know that this story really lacks in action (it relies more on drama and speech to drive the story along, I guess) but that should be ending soon. Not sure when, but soon.  
> Thank you so much for reading, and thank you to everyone who leaves nice comments and kudos and stuff! And an extra thank you to anyone who shares this with your fellow theatre nerd friends, we must unite in our love of our fandoms and good writing!  
> (This story is the highlight of my summer vacation. Another huge thank you for that, you guys are the best!!! I'm sending all of my love to you guys!!!)


	12. Waiving Away My Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan and his mom talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, one day early.  
> Enjoy!

“Spending a Thursday at without worrying about homework is the best.”

 

      “I had fun today, too.” Connor shrugged nonchalantly from my shoulder as he pulled his hair into a pony tail. Today had been pretty chill for him, too. Connor had had to look at what was wrong with my computer and found a virus that he got rid of, but that was about it for ‘work’ he had done today. “I mean, how else should a teenager spend their day? You got to nap, what, twice? And you ate nothing but junk food the whole day. That’s what most teenagers aspire to do.”

 

     “I don’t think I’ve ever skipped school.” I smiled at my act of teenage rebellion as I threw my head down onto my pillow again and pulled up my Squip Messaging App screen. I scanned over the group chat that Jared, Alana, Zoe and I had, and I saw that no one else was active. I could only guess that they were napping or doing something unproductive, just like they had been doing all day. “This is a first, and I love the way it feels.”

 

     “I skipped school so many times when I was alive.” Connor remembered his days of high school almost fondly. He laced his fingers together and cracked the joints inside of his fingers with one fluid motion. I wondered why Connor was putting hair up, he didn’t have to be Franta for a few more hours now. “I mean, sometimes I just would sleep in too late so I didn’t even bother to ever _pretend_ that I was going to go to school that day. Then I’d just nap or get high for most of the day, usually both.”

 

     “You don’t seem to have many hobbies.” I smiled as I swiped at the holographic screen in front of my face to close it. I rolled over to my stomach, and Connor was thrown onto my bed as I moved. He hissed as he was expelled from my shoulder, and flipped me off once he had landed on my bed before he walked closer to my head. “I mean, what did you do for fun? There had to be something. Crafts? Bird watching? Knitting?”

 

     “Did you purposely choose the only hobbies that you know that old people like?” Connor seemed unamused by my lame attempt at a joke, and I shrugged and smiled at his question. “I would draw sometimes, I had some of my drawings in my journal. I had a sketchbook full of older drawings, I’d add a new drawing every month so I could see my growth. I also really liked jokes as a kid, if that counts.”

 

     “I would have never pegged you as an artist.” I studied Connor closely, watching how he almost bit his lip and how he didn’t meet my eyes. He was almost ashamed that he liked to create art. No, ashamed wasn’t the right word. The word I was looking for was ‘bashful’. “You seem more like the kind of person who would have some crazy hobby like hunting exotic animals or starring in musicals.”

 

     “You think I could star in a musical?” Connor looked at me as if I were crazy, the idea of him being in a musical was impossible and ludicrous in his eyes. “I’d trip over my own feet and stumble with the words. I don’t like being up in front of people very much, I don’t like large crowds either. I’d rather just not attend a huge gathering and read about it later. Or not read about it.”

 

     “So, I guess that reading wasn’t something that once occupied your time?” I guessed as I rolled over onto my back and looked up at my ceiling. The more time that I spent talking with Connor and not doing homework, the more that I thought about how boring my ceiling was. And how much it needed to be repainted. “I kind of like reading, mostly fairy tales, but not the original ones. Those are very, very blood and very, very sad at the end.”

 

     “I loved reading, actually.” Connor didn’t say anything about my favorite genre of book, and he gained a far-off look in his eyes. He was thinking of different places, different times, different people. “I had the original Harry Potter series – signed copies, I might add. I had all of the Harry Potter merchandise that was for sale, and I loved Percy Jackson, too. But I never really got into the crossover story between them, Percy Jackson and the Portal to Hogwarts. I mean, they should have let the series rest, there was no need to make another series fifty years after both of the last books in those series had been published.”

 

     “I never read Percy Jackson and the Portal to Hogwarts.” I shivered just thinking about the horrible crossover that had come out of both of the book series. People – especially after the Second Civil War – were looking for ways to entertain their children safely without them getting hurt. And smashing two book series together without caring about how it read was one of the ways to do that. “And I’m glad that I never read it. I liked both of those series on their own, but putting them together – badly – sounds like both of the series lost their luster.”

 

     “Yeah, it wasn’t very good.” Connor agreed quietly as he tapped his fingers against his outer thighs passively. “But I didn’t have any other hobbies than reading and getting high. I mean, I would sometimes spend time with Zoe when we were kids. She preferred to do more ‘girly’ things back then, though. She didn’t like digging for worms or playing in the dirt and mud. She and Alex would just escape over to the neighbor’s house to have tea parties and dress up and sing songs.”

 

     “It’s still nice that you got to grow up with a sibling.” I felt a pang of jealousy hit my soul. Why did Connor take Zoe for granted? He had a great sister, she was so nice and kind and smart and pretty, why would he ever be sad in remembering her? “I grew up mostly alone. I had Jared, yeah, but we never got close. It was like he was afraid of being friends with people or something. I’m glad that we’re friends now, though.”

 

     “It isn’t the same when you have a sibling.” Connor shook his head, he almost seemed angry when recalling his childhood. “They’re always there. Not there for you always, but they’re always there. Taking away the attention that you should have, or making a mess and blaming it on you. They don’t always love you, and you don’t always love them, but you put up with them because you have to. You wear dumb outfits with them and hide from the photographer together at family gatherings.”

 

     “You don’t sound happy about that.” I observed in a small voice. I didn’t want to make Connor explode, but I didn’t understand why he was so angry that him and Zoe had had so many good times together as kids. “I mean, it sounds like you and Zoe were awesome siblings. Not all of the time, of course, but it sounds like you cared for her at least. I mean, she’s so wonderful, how could anyone not like her?”

 

     “It’s not her I’m mad at, Hansen.” Connor’s voice was acid, and the sound of it almost hurt my ears. Bitterness just oozed from his frame, his whole body was tense and no edge. “It’s _me_. I mean, she should have had a better brother, one who would have cared for her. Noticed her when things weren’t going so great in her life and cared enough to do something. Instead, she got me. And what ever happened to her real brother? Why did I replace him?”

 

     Connor looked me in the eyes, a fire burning in his green irises. He looked like he was about ready to kick his father off of every pedestal that anyone had ever placed him on, and somehow it was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen. All I could think about was how I had placed the Murphy family on a pedestal less than a week ago. I had thought that they were perfect. A rich, happy, handsome nuclear family with no flaws and no skeletons in their closets.

 

     Instead, they were a nuclear bombshell of a family with a depressed Squip for a son, a lying, cheating bastard for a husband and father, a quiet woman who will put up with everything until it breaks her for a wife and mom. And there’s also Zoe, but I couldn’t think of the bad thing that she brought to the family. They were nothing like what everyone thought they were when they heard about the Murphy family, and I could only imagine how much the Murphy’s had suffered because of that.

 

     “I don’t know, Connor.” I admitted, feeling almost a little lost. What did Connor want me to say? What did he need to hear? “I really, really don’t. But I _do_ know that you can’t keep living in someone’s shadow, much less someone who lived so little. You _are_ Zoe’s brother. You have the same genetic makeup, and even though you may not be the same entity, you love her and you want to make amends with her. You two have grown closer, you really are her brother.”

 

     “The only reason that I’m even alive is because someone else died, Hansen.” Connor deflated, his anger ebbed away slowly. He hugged himself and bit his lip as he slowly became more and more empty. “My life – if you can call it that – was bought because of someone else’s death. And yeah, he may not have been very old, but he was a person. And not only that, but I took his life away from him. I took his family, his place in the family. And I’m nothing but code and computer chips.”

 

     “You’re so much more than just ‘code and computer chips’.” I sat up and picked up Connor in my hands, ignoring his protest when I touched him. The shock that ran up my spine was mild, it was just a shock of surprise and not malice. “You are alive because someone brought you into this world for a purpose. You have a purpose, and you know what? You’ve done a really good job of fulfilling it. You were a test, and a successful one at that. You’re a brother to Zoe. And if it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have one. You didn’t take anything away from life, you only added more life where death would have crushed your family.”

 

     “I stole someone’s life!” Connor cried, anger and despair meeting in equal parts in his voice. “I can’t take that back! Someone else should have had my life, maybe the real Connor Murphy would have done better, gotten better grades, made friends, not done drugs. He would have been a better person than I ever could have been even if I-”

 

     “Don’t say that.” I interrupted Connor with a soft and fierce voice. I locked eyes with him, and I could see that he was breaking down in front of me. “Connor, you’re the real Connor. There is no other Connor that matters. No other Connor Murphy could matter more than you, and you’re never going to _ever_ stop being important or loved by your family. You didn’t steal someone’s life, you gave new life to someone. Live your life in memory of the old Connor Murphy, but never put yourself down for his benefit.”

 

    Connor shifted in my hands, he still wouldn’t meet my eyes. I didn’t know if he was going to say anything to me that indicated that he was doing better, but I hoped that he would. I could see by his body language that I had helped at least a little bit, but there was still some part of him that was hating himself, there was still a self-destructive streak in his personality that would keep him from being truly happy. And, as Connor’s friend, I really wanted to help him isolate that part of him and get rid of it.

 

      “Thank you, Hansen.” Connor gave me a half smile as sat down and he hugged his legs to his chest. “I guess that I just see it as I’m not the real Connor Murphy. The name isn’t mine, and neither is the genetic code. I’m just. . . Fake.”

 

     “You’re not fake, Connor.” I gave him a good-natured smile and I wished that I could hug Connor and make him feel better. “You’ve never been fake, and nothing about you will ever be fake. You’re not a fake human, or a fake Squip or a fake AI. You’re Connor Murphy, now and forever. And you’re something special, I don’t think that too many people who are also AI units exist.”

 

     “A title that’s going to put a bullseye right between my eyes one day.” Connor sighed, remembering Alana’s words of warning from last night. Don’t get caught, because only bad things can come of it. “I’m not exactly happy about that, but I guess that it is what it is. One day, I’m sure that the fact that I’m an AI will come in handy. I can hack into most things now, and I can finally pretend to understand the tech stuff that nerds say.”

 

     “You are tech yourself, so you have something up on them.” I smiled. I was just happy that we could talk about Connor’s state in a happy, relaxed way for once without it turning sour by sadness or anger. “You could probably kick any nerd’s butt if you really wanted to. Or blow their mind, I mean, it isn’t like there are very many human-like AI units just walking around Joliet.”

 

     “Hey, Hansen, when is your mom supposed to get home?” Connor seemed disturbed by something, but it wasn’t something that I had said, it was something that was lingering at the edge of Connor’s senses. All traces of AI talk faded into nothingness as I wondered why Connor would be asking about my mom getting off of work. “Because I think that she just came into the house, but the Squip that she has with her is in some kind of sneak mode.”

 

     “She’s supposed to get off of work at four today.” I had Mom’s schedule memorized: she gets off on Tuesdays and Thursdays at four, and every other day at eight. My eyes darted over to my alarm clock on my night table, it was only a little after one o’clock in the afternoon. Why was she home so early, if it was in fact her who was in my house right now? “Okay, can you figure out who it is? My mom isn’t supposed to be back home for another three hours. This might not be her.”

 

     “On it.” Connor gave me a mock salute and then disappeared without another word, leaving me with nothing but a bright flash of light where he once stood.

 

     I was in need of something to while Connor was away, trying to find out who the person was who was in my house. I wasn’t fully sure what to do with myself, exploring the house was out. So was making any kind of noise, or talking to anyone on the phone. I wasn’t sure that this was something that I should message my friends about, they would either care too much or too little. Without anything else, I reverted back to what a younger Evan Hansen would have done: hidden under the bed.

 

     I quickly crawled under my bed, thinking back to when I was a child and something bad happened. I would always hide under my bed when there was thunder and lightning, when a kid was mean to me at school, when I felt like everything outside my room was so scary that I wouldn’t ever be able to cope with it ever again. I could vividly remember that the last time I had hidden under my bed had been when Mom and Dad were having a fight, just a few days before the truck showed up and took my dad away.

 

     Remembering my childhood wasn’t always the most fun way to spend my day, and I hoped that Connor would report back with some good news soon. I wasn’t too sure what I wanted Connor to tell me, probably something along the lines of it was Mom and she was just trying to play a prank on her. It felt like a very long time since Connor had left, even though I knew that it had probably only been a minute at the absolute most. When Connor’s voice came back into my head, I was overjoyed.

 

     _Um, I think that maybe we overreacted._ Connor’s voice filled my mind and pushed away any thoughts of my childhood. I tried to decipher what he meant, but then I remembered that unlike the night at the Mermaid Café, I could talk to Connor without worrying about his mental compacity to handle talking and working at the same time. _There’s also just a chance that we underreacted, but I think that ‘overreacted’ it the word that I’m looking for._

 

     _So, is it my mom or not?_ My mental voice was quiet, and it almost vibrated off of the sides of my skull. _That’s all I need to know. I can deal with everything else later, but I just need to know if it’s my mother in my house or not._

_It is your mother,_ Connor sounded uneasy, and I could feel him moving farther away from me in the back of my mind. _But, she’s really, really pissed off. I don’t know if it is even safe to engage right now. It seems to me that she’s trying to catch you in the act of doing something bad. She knows that you played hooky today, Hansen._

_‘Safe to engage’?_ I questioned in a louder mental tone, almost saying the words aloud but I caught myself. I ignored everything else Connor had said, I wasn’t worried about Mom catching me sleeping or anything. _What do you mean? She’s my mother, what is the worst that could possibly happen?_

_Just because you said that, the worst that could happen_ will _happen._ Connor sounded fed up, and I felt him move even farther away from me. A dull headache pounded increasingly hard in the back of my mind, it felt like someone was politely knocking on my head repeatedly. _She’s really, really pissed, Hansen. I suggest that you come out and look sick or something. Mess up your hair, take some of the color out of your cheeks and try to shiver and shake subtly. And, if you can, lower your body temperature._

_You seem to know a lot about pretending to be sick._ I replied as I slowly pulled myself out from under my bed. I looked down at my bedroom floor, and I was reminded that I really needed to clean the floors in my room. I walked over to my mirror, and I fussed with my hair and yawned slightly before shedding my shirt and digging through my dresser to find a different one. _How many times did you pretend to be sick to get out of doing things, exactly?_

_Too many times to count accurately._ Connor’s voice was almost a whisper as I threw my new shirt over my shoulders and donned my indoor hoodie. I usually only wore these articles of clothing when I was sick. If I was going to pretend to be sick, I might as well look the part. _Hurry up, I think that she’s going to come up to your room now. She just checked the basement for you, and now she’s looking elsewhere. Your room is going to be first on her list of places to look now._

_Thank you for the information._ I pulled up the hood of my hoodie and tried my best to look miserable. I didn’t get sick often, but when I did, it was a horrible affair for both Mom and I. _Can you help me with the ‘looking pale’ thing that you said before? I know that Squips can control certain things about people’s appearance, and I think that you’re right about looking pale, that’ll help my mom think that I’m sick._

_Sure, one second._ Connor’s voice sounded closer, and I was happy that he was coming back closer to me. _Don’t go anywhere, I’m coming back but I’m taking my eyes off of your mom. And, not to make things worse, but I think that she’s having some trust issues with you._

_What makes you say that?_ I asked, cocking my head to the side. All at once, I could feel Connor’s presence back in my mind, and I watched the color drain from my face as I looked at myself in the mirror. I did look sick now, and Connor was somehow able to bring out the bags under my eyes for added measure. _I mean, she’s my mom, how could she ever loose trust in me? I’ve been nothing but good for years._

“She’s sneaking around the house to try and catch you doing something bad.” Connor sat on my shoulder, and he dimmed in the light that came off of him. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to do for me, but I knew that Connor had a plan, and I didn’t want to interfere with it. “Does your mother usually sneak around her own house with her Squip off? Is it normal for her to not announce her presence in the house? Does she often leave work early without calling?”

 

      “You’re just being paranoid.” I told Connor, but he was right. Mom never left work early without calling first. Maybe the school had called her about my absence. On second thought, maybe Connor had a point. She could be a very paranoid person, she had learned that from my dad, I think that she feared that might try to follow in his footsteps and just up and leave one day.

 

      I pushed down the feeling of doubt that my mom was home for any reason other than to just say hi – or maybe she was sick herself, how ironic would that be? A small smile snuck onto my face as I thought about the irony and I opened my bedroom door and walked tenderly through the threshold of the room. I closed the door behind me, just as I heard footsteps and I froze in place. I was vaguely away of Connor saying something in my head, but I was mostly just worried about running into my mom.

 

     “Evan, is that you?” My mom’s voice floated over to me and I froze. Her voice was tired and worn, yet also happy to see me. Anger tinged some of the edges of her words, but it was so subtle that I didn’t care to notice it. “Honey, are you sick? Oh, Evan, I’m so sorry! Come here, you look like you need some motherly love right now.”

 

     My mom walked towards me, a tired smile was spread out across her face. She wrapped her arms around me, and I tried to do the same. My mom really bought that I was sick, and she knew nothing about Connor or about what I had been through over the past couple of days. She knew nothing about the crimes that I had committed, and I wasn’t going to get in trouble for them.

 

    So, why did I feel so guilty?

 

     _Don’t you dare tell her anything._ Connor warned ominously from inside my head. He could tell exactly what I wanted to do, but I also knew that he didn’t want to get found out, and if I told my mom the truth that could be potentially bad. _We have to keep her out of this, Hansen. If she’s involved in any way, it could put her in danger. It doesn’t matter if you feel bad about it, we have to bring Larry to justice before we tell her anything._

“Honey, is something wrong?” My mom pulled down my hood and kissed my hair on the top of my head. “I got a call from the school today saying that you didn’t show up. At first, I thought that you were playing hooky – funny, right? I guess I just have a hard time trusting teenagers, but I have the best teenage son. Just be sure to call me the next time you are sick, okay? That way I won’t get an annoying call from the school again.”

 

     “Okay, Mom, I’ll be sure to tell you.” I nodded, and I pulled away from my mom slightly. But Mom’s hand flew to my wrists and they held me fast. “I’m going to go back to sleep, I don’t have much of an appetite so I’m trying to just sleep off whatever this bug is.”

 

    “Not before you come to the kitchen, I want to talk to you.” Mom’s eyes bore into mine as she lightly led me back to the kitchen. Her hand around my cast fell away, but she kept up the pressure on my other wrist. “So much has happened, and we need to sit down have a little talk. I promise that it won’t be like pulling teeth, it’ll be more fun than that.”

 

     My mom’s hair was pulled back in a bun, and she wasn’t wearing any earrings, she had probably had to help out in the X-Ray room again. That was never a fun job, and she would sometimes vent about it to me when she had particularly bad day. Mom’s eyes were weary and concerned as she struggled to make sense of why I was home without calling her and telling her that I was sick. I will admit that was very unlike me, but I hoped that she’d be able to see past it. I looked for Annie on her shoulder, but my mom’s Squip was nowhere to be seen.

 

     _Hansen, you can do this._ Connor encouraged in a bored voice. I looked at my mom’s shoulder, and I scanned around for her Squip, but Annie was nowhere to be seen. _Just remember that you’re doing this for her own good. If she knew what was going on, she would only add more trouble to the mess that we’re in right now. We can’t allow that to happen, not after what Jared did. We’re already walking on eggshells, telling your mom would only make it worse._

_Okay, I’ll be sure to not tell my mom anything._ I frantically thought about what I would have to talk about if I couldn’t talk about Connor. Would Connor come back at Franta and help me out? Would I be able to keep up the sick act? Would all of this blow up in my face? _Don’t worry, I’m not freaking out. Yet._

Connor sighed in my head, and I could almost hear the amount of trust he had in me fall drastically. I couldn’t blame him, I was so bad at lying that it wasn’t even funny. The last time that I had tried to lie, I had ended up telling the whole truth because I felt so bad afterwards. It had to lead to my mom almost grounding me for a week, but she let up on the punishment and forgave me for accidentally knocking over a vase.

 

     When Mom and I reached the kitchen, she sat down right away. She still had her hospital scrubs on, and her wet shoes on her feet (it was raining again, it seemed like it would never let up). She flashed a smile and motioned to my seat and I sat down, trying to complete the action as quickly as possible. I wanted to get this talk over with as soon as possible, that way I could go back to napping, and maybe see if Jared, Alana or Zoe wanted to talk later.

 

     “So, I got a call today that wasn’t from the school.” Mom tapped her finger nails against the table, making a high clicking noise. Her green eyes met mine, and I could see the shift from caring mother to mother who was about to accuse me of something. “It was from Cynthia Murphy, Connor Murphy’s mom. She said that you showed up soaking wet on her doorstep on Tuesday night, without any warning. She said that you knew Connor and you were broken up about his death.”

 

      _Well, fuck._ Connor swore eloquently in my head, adding a lot of vigor into his curse. _Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to repeat after me, and you’re going to say exactly what I say. Nothing more, nothing less. Can you handle that?_

_Maybe, I don’t know!_ I was panicking, and my mom could tell. She raised an eyebrow at me, it was as if she knew that I was talking to my Squip. _But I trust you. So, just make sure that my mom believes me._

_That’s your job, Hansen._ Connor was no doubt rolling his eyes right now. _Connor and I were really close. It was really, hard for me to cope with his loss. I didn’t think he’d ever do it, it kind of made me angry and sad. I went to Mrs Murphy because I didn’t know who else to turn to, Dr North can’t help me anymore and I didn’t know anyone else who would help me through this._

“Connor and I were really close.” I lied, not meeting my mom’s eyes. Thankfully, Connor had learned my speech pattern and the words didn’t sound too wrong coming out of my mouth. “It was really, really hard for me to cope with his loss. I didn’t think he’d ever do it, it kind of made me angry and sad. I went to Mrs Murphy because I didn’t know who else to turn to, Dr North can’t help anymore and I didn’t know anyone else who would help me through this.”

 

     “Oh, darling, I’m so sorry!” Mom’s hand flew over to mine, and she held onto my hand so tight I was worried that it might break. She gave me an apologetic look, but then it dissolved as doubt clouded her mind. “Mrs Murphy also said that that night there was a break-in. Someone came into her husband’s study and stole many, many documents, photos and check stubs. Do you know anything about what happened that night?”

 

     _I didn’t do it, and I didn’t see anything, either._ Connor instructed immediately, and I was almost worried about how he came up with these things so quickly. _I was just there to make myself feel better, I didn’t know about the break-in until you told me. I never would have guessed that something happened that night, and what kind of robber steals documents and not money?_

 

     “I didn’t do it, and I didn’t see anything, either.” I repeated, trying to put emotion into what I was saying. Mom nodded slowly, she was buying it. “I was there to make myself feel better, I didn’t know about the break-in until you told me. I never would have guessed that something happened that night, and what kind of robber only steals documents and not money?”

 

     “You don’t know even a single thing?” My mom confirmed, sounding worried. She didn’t want to think that I was lying to her, or that I had committed any crimes. I wondered in the back of my mind which one was worse to her: lying about committing the crime, or committing the crime itself. “Because Cynthia said that any information would be much needed and appreciated. She’s worried about her own well-being, but she’s happy that she wasn’t harmed during the break-in.”

 

     _I’m glad that she wasn’t hurt, too, but I really don’t know what could have happened or why._ Connor supplied, his voice was almost giddy. It was like he was happy to put down any idea that crimes had been committed that night by Connor and I or our friends. _I haven’t talked to her since Tuesday, and I really don’t know what to say about her fears._

“I’m glad that she wasn’t hurt, too, but I really don’t know what could have happened or why.” I could foresee something bad coming out of Connor’s words, but I wasn’t sure that I could come up with anything better. “I haven’t talked to her since Tuesday, and I really don’t know what to say about her fears.”

 

     “Why don’t we call her, then?” My mom suggested, and my blood ran cold. I cursed myself for letting Connor supply my last words for me, now Mom would figure out things if I misspoke. “I think that calling her and telling her that you’re here for her and letting her know that you’re doing better would help. She’s probably worried about her, she’s a nice lady. She gave me her home phone number, because she said that she answers that more than she answers her cell phone. That’s funny, isn’t it?”

 

      _Hansen, you cannot call my house._ Connor sounded scared and worried, he was just one big ball of anxiety right now. _If Larry picks up, we could be done for. He’ll know that you were there that night, and then you’ll freak out and he’ll know that you know about his deal with Jared and the timeline will move up. We cannot allow that to happen. We have to make sure that this doesn’t happen, at any cost._

Connor’s last words bounced around in my head, and I tried to think of any way possible to get out of having a conversation with Mrs Murphy or Mr Murphy over the phone. I could pretend to get sick, but Mom might not buy that I was really sick. She was a nurse, after all. I could run away, but that was kind of a last-ditch effort kind of thing that I would only do if I really needed to.

“We shouldn’t call Mrs Murphy, Mom.” I tried giving my mom an awkward ‘I’m sorry’ smile, but she wasn’t buying it anymore. “I mean, it’ll probably just make her feel worse. Who really wants to get a call from a teenage boy they hardly know, anyways? I think that we should just leave her alone. Maybe we can make her some cookies and drop them off instead! Yeah, she’d love that!”

 

     “Evan, what’s wrong?” The puzzle pieces were falling into place in my mom’s head. Doubt was still painted on her face, she refused to believe that I was responsible for the break-in. “Why don’t you want to talk to Mrs Murphy? Did you see something that night? It’s okay if you did, you can anonymously tell the police and they can help. There’s no reason to be afraid, honey. Just _tell me_ what’s wrong.”

 

      I couldn’t think of anything to do, anything to say. Telling my mom the truth would break the trust that she had in me, not to mention the fact that it would put her danger. I could feel my breath start to get faster and shallower, this wasn’t coming that I really wanted to deal with right now. But, if I didn’t tell her, then the circle of lies would just continue to grow and grow until it never stopped and I had only a distant memory of honesty between my mother and I. There was no right answer, and I could tell that Connor knew that, too.

 

     Walking away would be something acute to suicide. If I walked away right now – or ran away, if needed be – Mom would know that I not only had something to hide, but that things were much bigger than what she could even grasp the scope of. Yes, I hated to talk to people over the phone, but whenever one of our neighbors was hurt or a distant family member was having surgery, Mom would be able to coax me into talking to them for a little while before I ran back to my room to finish up some homework.

 

     Connor wasn’t supplying any words or commands. He was at a loss, too, it seemed. The look in my mom’s eyes was only getting worse, more anxiety and fear filled her gaze than before, and I could tell that I was making things worse by not jumping right into saying something. I was acting like myself, I realized with a pit in my stomach. I was acting like the _old_ Evan Hansen, not the Evan Hansen who had stood up to Dr North, had gone and committed crimes to help out his new best friend or who was staring an end to everything he knew and loved in the face.

 

      Now the question was, did this new Evan Hansen choose fight or flight?

 

     “Evan, talk to me.” My mom begged, her voice was small as tears welled up in her eyes. They wouldn’t fall, not yet. I hadn’t seen my mom cry in years, but I knew that she waited as long as possible to fall apart, and there was no reason to fall apart just yet. I hadn’t admitted to anything yet. “Please, tell me that you didn’t do anything wrong. Tell me that you were just at the Murphy’s house to meet up with Cynthia because you missed Connor. Tell me the truth, Evan!”

 

     “I don’t know what to say.” I admitted, the honesty in the phrase was almost overwhelming to me. There wasn’t anything to say, I didn’t have anything to say to her. I could go through with the phone call and something bad could happen to me, or I could tell her the truth and something bad could happen to both of us. Neither option sounded like very much fun, I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

 

     _Hansen, I hate to be that guy, but I think it’s time to bolt._ Connor’s voice was a welcome sound in my head until I hear his words. Run away? From my mother? The idea was crazy, I’d never live it down. _I understand that she’s your mother - one of the best moms I’ve ever met, I might add – but we really can’t take any chances that something bad is going to happen to you or to her. You’ll be able to come back in a few hours, I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?_

_A lot of bad things could happen._ I asserted, and I knew what I had to do. The new Evan Hansen was going to choose to fight, and not run away from his problems. This new Evan Hansen was going to talk to his mother and tell her what had happened. I was going to give her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. _Connor, I have to come clean. She’s my mother, I’m sure that she can help. She’s studying law at night. I can’t keep this secret anymore, I don’t think I’ve ever hidden something from her before._

I was about to talk to my mom again (all the while ignoring the screamed threats that Connor was filling my mind with), when a knock at the front door pulled us both out of our little world. Mom didn’t give me a final look or anything as she walked over to the door, but her eyes lingered on me for a few seconds. I heard Mom open the door and speak quietly to whoever had knocked. It sounded like a man, with a thick, tired, gruff voice that reminded me of how a stereotypical police officer would sound.

 

     _Get on your shoes as fast as you can and get ready to bolt._ Connor’s voice was urgent, and I dove to my shoes in the kitchen. I suddenly immensely happy that I had chosen to keep my shoes in the kitchen today instead of in my bedroom. I slipped my shoes – blue, with a large New Balance logo on the side – onto my feet and laced them as fast as I could. _I don’t trust this situation. Besides, it’s always easier to beg forgiveness than ask for permission._

 

     I didn’t argue with Connor’s logic there, but I was slightly confused as to why Connor couldn’t tell me who was at the door and why they were showing up at my house at one thirty on a Thursday afternoon. No one I wanted to meet, I assumed. I opened the back door as quietly as I could while still trying to hurry the along the action so that I could get away from the house as soon as possible. I had no idea when the unexpected visitor would go away, and as soon as they left Mom would be right back in the kitchen.

 

     Stepping out of the kitchen and onto the back stoop was a liberating feeling, and I looked around at the lack of people out on my street. I was slightly puzzled by this, the elderly and retired people on my street really, really loved to take long walks any time that they could, and since the rain had stopped and it was just cloudy, I would have expected at least a few of my neighbors to be out walking dogs or tending to their gardens while the rain wasn’t pouring down on people’s heads.

 

    I spotted a full-black van in front of my house, and I cocked my head to the side. Who drives a full-black van, other than police officers and Feds? I quietly freaked out and closed the door. I didn’t want my mom to hear the noise and think that I’d bolted, that would be very, very bad. And, who knows, it might send the officer after me. Which would make things exponentially worse, as my mom might start questioning me about why I was at the Murphy house on Tuesday in front of the officer.

 

     Ignoring the weirdness of not seeing people around, I made sure that I could still hear the police officer and my mom as I closed the distance between us as quiet as I possibly could.  As I calmly walked around my house, making sure to stick as close to the house as possible to keep anyone from seeing me, I saw that the person that my mom was talking to was a very large, buff man wearing all black clothing. He had a gun on a belt at his side, and panic rose in my throat.

 

     _Remember that park that you stopped at when we attended our first day of school as student and Squip?_ Connor asked, but his words were almost impossible for me to make out. There was what looked like a federal agent at my door, talking to my mother. _Go there and find a good place to hide while I try to contact someone who can help us. Run, Hansen, run._

I didn’t need to be told twice. I was thankful for my hoodie, and I pulled up my hood and tried to look very inconspicuous. Connor was barking orders in my ear about how to look like I belonged, and hoped that he knew what he was talking about. As I walked farther down my street towards the park, I saw that there was a lack of people going on walks not just on my block, and that there was an influx of strange black cars. I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t been found yet, I doubted that I could out-run a federal agent.

 

     The clouds above me rumbled angrily, and memories of Tuesday night came back to me with stunning clarity. Tripping in the rain had worked out okay that night, but I doubted that it would work out okay right now. I was choosing to run away, and I had no idea how long I’d have to stay away from my home and my mother and how long I had until someone found me and turned me in or worse.

 

     And yet, I had never been calmer. It was crazy, I was surprised that I wasn’t freaking out just yet. Something in the back of my mind told me that Connor had something to do with the fact that I wasn’t freaking out yet, I was in a state of almost complete apathy. If Connor didn’t have something to do with this, then I guess that my anxiety had been cured by some unknown source once and for all. And I knew that the last ‘possibility’ wasn’t a real possibility at all.

 

     Finally, the park came into view. I had walked to the park as quickly as I had dared, but now that I was in the park, I broke into a run just as the clouds unleashed their fury onto the ground below. I let out a sigh as the rain cascaded over my body and froze me to the bone, the warm undertone in the air was gone now. The park had never seemed so big, but now that I was running for my life, it seemed huge.

 

      Finally, I reached a tree that was a good enough height that a fall from it wouldn’t break anything in my body (and wouldn’t re-injure my broken arm) but was also high enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about any kids climbing up after me. It was about forty feet tall, with branches reaching high into the air. The tree was a perfect oak tree, with enough footholds to allow me to go up pretty high into the tree without allowed me to fall back onto the ground because I couldn’t find another branch to climb to.

 

     _Go as high as you dare to._ Connor instructed in a hollow voice, he was clearly trying to keep himself from panicking, too. Now that I had had time to process everything that had happened, I was starting to panic. I had just run away from government agents. That was illegal, right? Yet another crime that I had committed in the past few days. _Just make sure that no one looking at you would be able to see you from afar. Blend in the best that you can._

I tried to follow Connor’s directions to blend into the tree, but it was hopeless. Finally, I settled for a place about thirty feet up the tree where I could balance my body on two different branches at the same time to lower the risk of one of the branches breaking and sending me tumbling down to Earth. I _couldn’t_ allow that to happen, lest someone found me. I tried to steady my breathing, and I tried to recall the last time that I had taken my dumb anxiety meds.

 

     _Connor, this doesn’t seem like the best idea._ I pointed out as I the raindrops filtered through the leaves above me and soaked into my clothes and lowered my body temperature more than what was needed. _I mean, I’m cornered if someone finds me._

_Zoe isn’t responding._ Connor’s voice had never sounded so scared in his life. Fear was beginning to trickle down my spine, I was worried that I was going to fall out of the tree or be found. The fear that Connor was feeling was only making my fear worse. It was the snowball effect. _This isn’t good. I even messaged to her computer. Same thing with Alana, and Jared. Hansen, I think that something big is happening right now._

“Fan out, he came this way!” The same gruff voice that belonged to the man that my mom was talking to before was once again in my ears. Panic flooded me, so they had followed me. But what unsettled me was that I didn’t know how. If they had followed me by watching that would have been better than them tracking me through Connor. “We need to find him, he’s considered armed and dangerous. I don’t have to remind you where we are and how dire it is that we find Mr Hansen before he kills anyone else.”

 

     _What the fuck?_ I swore openly in my mind, shock was starting to claw to the top of my mind. _I haven’t killed anyone, ever! Are they framing me for your death, Connor? It was a suicide, an obvious suicide, too, it was an overdose! They can’t frame me for something I haven’t done!_

_I don’t understand what they’re talking about, and I don’t know what to do now, either._ Connor had never sounded so strung out. He appeared on my shoulder, his holographic form would flicker each time that a raindrop fell on his body. _But, right now, I’m more worried about contacting someone. I don’t understand why they won’t reply to me. Oh, shit!_

_What is it?_ I asked, too tired to add fear or panic into my tone. I had been through so much, and I was slowly coming down with a cold. _Did something bad happen? Is it a message from your father? My mother? What is it?_

This whole day was going from really, really good to really, really bad. I could hardly believe how quickly the tables had turned, it was at almost break-neck speed. But I didn’t have time to dwell on that, I was more worried about why the Feds were coming after me in the first place. I had a pretty good search history, I didn’t download pornography. They might be here about the whole ‘stealing documents from Mr Murphy thing’ but then why would they accuse me of murder? What did Mr Murphy have to gain? What was his game?

_Zoe and Jared are in custody for breaking and entering charges and for other charges of stealing trade secrets._ Connor’s mouth didn’t move, and it almost toppled over. His eyes were clouded over, this was a lot for Connor to process all at once. _No word on Alana yet, but things don’t look good. The article says that there’s a third person that they’re looking for, by the name of Evan Hansen._

 

     “That’s my name.” I whispered icy fear trickled down my back along with icy rain. Feds ran around the ground below me, and one must have heard me and he looked up. His dull grey eyes locked on mine as he studied me the way that a wolf studies a deer he intends to track down and kill. He thought about his actions for a split second before looking back down and yelling to his comrades.

 

    The grey-eyed Fed was able to cry out very loudly, and he also motioned with his hand for people to follow him over. He pointed the muzzle of his gun up me, a vicious smile spread over his face. He was dressed in a black suit that looked like a jumpsuit almost, it was skintight with small patches of metal armor sewn onto the outside of the suit on the user’s joints and vital organs to provide more protection in the heat of battle. Plus, I hated to admit it, it looked pretty cool.

 

     I didn’t dare hold up my hands in surrender, or else I would fall out of the tree and land on the ground and that would be painful. Not to mention that the agents might see the fall as an attack and try to shoot me. I could hear the sound of many footsteps racing towards me as they yelled out orders at each other. It was a horrible chorus of male and female voice screaming out malicious orders at each other about what to do if I tried to attack. Somehow, it was a blow to my self-esteem that they thought that I was a threat.

 

    The agents formed a circle around the tree, their muscles tense and their fingers on the triggers of their guns. They were all running close to the ground as they tried to run quickly but not slip and fall onto the wet grass that their combat boots were coming in contact with. They each moved with the accuracy that only specialized Squips could give, they looked like predators. And I, the unwitting teenager who had just ended up with stolen company property in his head, was their prey.

 

     I knew that they weren’t going to climb the tree to get me, that would be risky. But I also really didn’t want to drop down and get shot. Whether the bullet was made of metal or not didn’t matter, something being shot into my body and breaking my skin was still going to hurt. Connor was yelling in my head, cursing me out for getting caught and also trying to instruct me on different things to do. Suddenly, I remembered how helpless I had felt in the orchard, and how I felt that same way now. Maybe the thoughts of my past self would come in handy right now.

 

     I sent a tentative look down to the ground, seeing how slick the grass was because of the rain. I could see the agents were studying me, and I could almost see shock in some of their eyes. I didn’t know what they had expected, but I felt almost bad that I had let them down by just being myself. Suddenly, I saw how flawed that was. They were trying to hurt me, but we had something in common. We were both just being used as pawns in Mr Murphy’s game.

 

     I was just a pawn now. And so were these people, these people with Squips inside of their heads that allowed them to act like superhumans and be quicker, smarter and stronger than the average human. They were pawns with some cool powers, but they were still pawns. I also knew that when enough pawns came together, they could turn the tide of war and move their way onto the other side of the board and be crowned as royalty.

 

     And I was dying to see myself in a crown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to anyone and everyone who leaves comments, kudos or just reads! Thank you so much for making my story a part of your day, it means the world to me!  
> Have a great day, people of the Internet!


	13. You Have Been Found (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan Hansen has been found, and he accepts that. What he doesn't accept is that Mr Murphy is going to win this battle, or any battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some fun with the way that this chapter was written, I just wanted to do something awesome before the time ran out and all 17 chapters were posted. That's right, kiddies, this story is coming to a close soon. I still have five more chapters left, though, so this should be fun!  
> Enjoy!

“Well, this is a nice change of scenery.”

 

     “It’s a prison cell.”

 

     “I was being sarcastic.”

 

     “This is so bad.” I placed my hands against my head, pressing down on my skull as hard as I could without causing too much damage or pain. I was sitting on the bed in the cell, and other than that and a small toilet there was nothing else here. I didn’t know what to think about that, part of me was happy about that but the other part of me was freaked out by the lack of other pieces of furniture in the cell. “I mean, what is my mom going to think when she finds out about this? And why am I here in the first place? I mean, who sends the Feds after a seventeen-year-old who stole bunch of family photos and birth records?”

 

     “My father and his company, that’s who.” Connor’s sarcastic tone dropped and he sighed as he sat down on my shoulder. Connor crossed his arms in front of his chest, he knew that he was lucky to still be active right now. The only reason that he wasn’t being stored on a computer as we spoke was because he was an ‘anomaly’, and the prison guards didn’t know if they would be able to shut him down with normal shut down codes. And SquipTech didn’t want to take that risk either. “I just wish that someone would tell us what’s going on already.”

 

     “That would be nice.” I agreed with a nod. Sitting here in this cell made me feel not only useless and helpless, but like the biggest pawn in the world. I thought back to being trapped in that dumb tree, and I looked at my left arm disdainfully, a Fed had decided to shoot me in the left forearm. After being treated, the doctors had put on a different cast, the other one was soaked in blood. “I just want to see Zoe, Alana and Jared. I know that before you said that Alana hadn’t been arrested, but I still think that we need to figure out what happened to her.”

 

     “I’m sure that she’s fine.” Connor wasn’t being very convincing with his lie, but I felt slightly honored that he was lying to me to save my feelings. I mean, who else would lie to me just to make sure that I had good mental health? “I mean, she’s one of the smartest people I know, even without Danny. She’s probably figuring a way to get us out of this mess as we speak. That’s just something that she would do. We just need to trust her and wait for things to work themselves out at this point.”

 

     “This is a big mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.” I felt like the only way to make things better was to repeat that everything was so bad over and over again. So far, it wasn’t working, but I hoped that it might work later. I pushed my hands against my head harder than before, trying in vain to settle a headache down by giving myself external pain to focus on. “I just want to go home and take a nap. I can’t sleep here, I feel like someone is going to sneak up on me and attack me or something. And the headache doesn’t help.”

 

      Because Connor wasn’t connected to the Internet, I was getting serious headaches and pains, I was like a junkie who had gone cold turkey. And this was just the first stage. The prison and the Feds didn’t want me connecting to any Internet and getting any ideas, or else they could be in serious trouble if I contacted someone and set off a chain reaction. However, my mind was used to the WiFi connection, so going without it – especially since I had a Squip in my head – wasn’t helping me at all with the shock of getting arrested.

 

     “Who knew that 5G had such an effect on people?” Connor tried to make a joke, before I glared up at him. He shut his mouth and looked away from me. He had no right to joke about the pain that I was in, thanks to him, I might add. “Okay, okay, Hansen. No need to act like me right now. We don’t need two Connor Murphys right now. If anything, two Evan Hansens would be better.”

 

     “Right now, I think that we all just need a nap.” I said dramatically, and Connor rolled his eyes at me. With little effort, I thought back to when I had been taken down from the tree. I cringed at my actions that had already been committed and my words that had already been said. “I’m going to try to kill this headache and maybe bring down my stress level. Can you try to stay awake and warn me if anyone comes near us? I’d feel better knowing that I had someone on my side while I’m sleeping.”

 

     “Can do.” Connor promised as I laid down on the thin mattress. I laid down on my back, and I propped my head up against the small pillow on the mattress in a desperate effort to make myself feel comfortable and safe enough to sleep, even if it was only for half an hour. Connor hovered above my chest for a few moments, before he phased away to a different place.

 

     Once Connor was gone, I picked at my t-shirt. My hoodie had gotten blood all over it, but I still had on all of my other clothes. I wasn’t sure why this was, I was pretty sure that prisoners weren’t allowed to wear the clothes that they came to prison in. But, somehow, I was an exception. My light blue shirt was my only comfort, I loved the way that it felt against my skin. My shoes were still wet, but I liked them and I was glad that they weren’t gone. I let my muscles relax, as I tried to focus on nothing.

 

     I stared up at the ceiling – a pale concrete grey – for a few minutes. My body was exhasted, between the running and the lack of sleep over the past couple of nights. Yes, I had gotten some extra hours of sleep earlier, but I hadn’t gotten enough hours to make up for the sleep that I had missed on Tuesday night, or any other night for that matter. Mentally, I was a wreck. I wasn’t sure how I was still hanging on, I was so worried about what was going to happen to me. My stress level was through the roof, and I just needed to take a nap and forget about everything for a while.

 

     I closed my eyes, and I thought back to what had happened when I was trapped in the tree just a few mere hours ago.

 

* * *

“Come down from the tree with your hands up, Mr Hansen!”

 

     The order was barked from a Fed on the ground below me, the same one who had spotted me. His grey eyes glowed with a sick kind of joy through the falling rain as he watched me freak out from above him. He had some kind of cruel love for what he was doing, and it made a shiver run down my spine. I knew in the back of my mind that this could get worse – much, much worse if I provoked anyone on the ground – but another part of me thought that this situation getting any worse as also impossible.

 

     _Tell them that you’re going to jump down from the tree._ Connor suggested quietly. His voice was calming, like he was trying to get an uneasy to child to eat their vegetables or go to bed early. _Make sure that you talk slowly, make it look like you’re not scared. If you show fear, they’ll show fear. And don’t say anything that you don’t have to, they really can use anything you say right now against you in court. Use your words sparingly._

There was more adrenaline than blood in my veins, and I could almost feel my nerves becoming more and more frayed. I looked down, remembering how far I had ‘fallen’ the last time that I had climbed a tree. What was funny was that back then, the fear hadn’t been the same. It had been almost a liberating fear; the real fear hadn’t kicked in until I had hit the ground and my arm went numb. Now the fear was everywhere.

 

     But, just like then, I had no more branches to climb. I had no more options, I couldn’t go any farther. It was either fall and accept that things were going to hell, or climb higher and get a bullet in my body. Both options seemed horrible, and all of my will to go on drifted away. I just had to get through this, and then I could worry about the future later. Rain had almost soaked me to the bone, and the clouds above me weren’t stopping their assault anytime soon.

 

     “I’m going to jump down from the tree.” My voice didn’t waver as much as I thought that it would, and I was proud of myself. I didn’t know if Connor was proud of me or not, but I was proud of myself for not freaking out too much. The Feds on the ground didn’t share my same pride, they shifted slightly as I spoke. “Don’t shoot. I’m just going to jump.”

 

     “If you attempt to injure yourself, there will be dire consequences.” A gruff female voice called out from below. I couldn’t tell who was talking, but she sounded tired and worn out. Funny enough, she sounded just like how my nerves felt. I guessed that she had more pull than the Fed who had spotted me, because she had been the one to talk and not him. “Make sure that you don’t injure yourself or any of my personnel in your fall.”

 

     I inched along the branch slowly, and the agents below me moved a few inches too. They made the circle that surrounded me larger by just a little bit. They didn’t want to give me the opportunity to run away, but they knew that I needed room. My fingers were clammy as they searched for a good place where I could hold onto a branch and then lower my legs down. Rain dripped through my hair and into my eyes, where it blinded me for a few seconds before I blinked it away. The rain wasn’t helping me on my mission to get down from the tree, but I figured that this dumb rain had done some good things for me in the past. Might as well trust it.

 

     Swinging my legs off of the tree, the agents’ poses changed. Their muscles became tense and their upper lips curled as their fingers moved to their guns’ triggers. Fear threatened to take me down, but I knew that freezing up now would give Mr Murphy the victory that he was craving. And I’d be dammed if I was going to let him win, I wasn’t going to be his pawn any longer than I had to be.

 

     _Move slowly_. A female voice said inside of my head. The Squip’s quick presence in my head made me slip up, and the first layer of skin on my fingers was ripped off as I panicked. I had let go of the branches for a second. I regained my composure, and I almost panicked again when I didn’t feel Connor’s presence. I dared not ask what happened to him, I could remember his previous warnings about talking to cops.

 

     With a single fluid movement, I swung my legs out and I lifted my arms away from the branches of the oak tree. My feet landed on the ground, then my hands less than a second later. Pain shot up my arms, and I could feel something sticky on my hands that I could only assume was blood and not the mud that was now covering every inch of ground that wasn’t occupied by grass. I lifted my head to find a dozen guns pointed right at me. I wanted to backpedal and run away on instinct, but I was able to crush the desire and stay put.

 

     _Now get up slowly, with your hands behind your head._ The female Squip voice was back, and I followed the orders that she had nearly shouted at me. I didn’t understand why a Squip was now talking to me when there were people all around me who were perfectly capable of talking who could shout at me without her help. _Now, wait for one of my comrades to tell you what to do next. Do not make any sudden movements, or we will shoot._

I tried to ignore the mystery Squip’s last comment about shooting as I followed her instructions and got up slowly and put my hands behind my head. I expected someone to run at me with handcuffs, but no one was moving. It was almost like no one knew who was going to act next, which made me wonder how well the Feds really operated. I had always expected them to be some kind of hive-mind that never screwed up and always was quick to act. I was wrong.

 

     The rain was falling down harder on me, and I was having trouble seeing and hearing the breathing of the agents around me. The eyes of the Federal agents were blurred by the icy raindrops that were falling over us and by the fear that had left me blind to the danger of coming to the park in the first place. The black outfits that the Fed wore were waver proof, but each second my clothing became heavier and heavier as more and more rain soaked into the cotton, polyester and denim. Above me, thunder rolled, and it was the straw the broke the camel’s back.

Several things happened at once: I ducked my head under my hands because I had never been so stressed and my childhood fear of thunder (which apparently still hadn’t been thrown away, even after Tuesday night) flared up and my fingers dug into my messy hair over my head as I curled my body so that my head was near my knees. The Fed with the grey eyes, noticing how fast I moved sensed an attack and shot, the bullet made a horribly loud noise as it escape the bonds of the casing that it was in and flew out to bury itself in my flesh.

 

     A cry tore from my throat as I felt pain like I had never felt before manifest itself in my left arm. Something worse than fear took me over, I didn’t even have a word to describe the emotion that had taken control of me. This was worse than any panic attack I had ever had, this was _Hell._ Around me, I could hear the sounds of safeties on guns clicking on, and I could hear people yelling to one another. I felt someone touch my arm, and pain exploded in my body again.

 

     _Just stay calm, Mr Hansen._ The female Squip cooed to me, and I felt the fear-like emotion subside. It didn’t feel right that the fear was leaving too soon, and the more than I tried to hold onto the strange emotion, the more that it was taken away from me. I felt exhausted all of the sudden, it was like the day’s events had finally caught up with me. _The calmer you are, the simpler this next part will be. My name is Shelia, and I’m your friend. Now, you need to tell me your full name, Mr Hansen._

_Evan David Hansen._ I said back to her. Shelia was so nice! She had such a calming voice. Around me, I could hear less and less yelling. It was like someone was turning down the volume of the world around me. I could feel only a dull memory of pain in my left arm. Had a fallen out of a tree again? Why did things feel so fuzzy? _Shelia, what just happened? I’m scared, did I get myself hurt? Where did Connor go?_

_Do not be scared, Mr Hansen._ Shelia’s voice was so calming, I smiled softly at it as I closed my eyes. I could no longer see the rain falling down through the branches of a tree to soak my skin. It looked like a really big tree, but something about the tiny bits of red on some of the branches told me that maybe it wasn’t safe. _I’m your friend, I just need you to rest right now. Then we’re going to speak with some of my other friends, and then you can go home, okay? But you need to cooperate with us, okay?_

_Okay._ My reply was sluggish and I drew out the ‘a’ in okay for just a second too long. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I could feel someone taking off my hoodie, and I could hear the faintest sounds of someone screaming and yelling orders at someone else. Or maybe they were yelling at me? I couldn’t tell, but I was sure that Shelia would tell me after I woke up. _Will you promise to wake me up when Connor comes back, Shelia?_

_Of course, Mr Hansen._ Shelia’s voice now sounded far-away, but I didn’t mind. I could feel the rest of my muscles relax and I barley could tell that my body was being picked up and moved. _Just go to sleep now, things will be better in the morning._

For some reason, I knew that she was lying. But I was too tired to act on my suspicions.

 

* * *

 

“Hansen!”

 

     “Huh?” I shook my head and my eyes slowly came into focus. Connor was hovering in front of my face, snapping his fingers and slapping his little hands against my cheeks. I was just glad that he hadn’t shocked me in an effort to wake me up. My muscles weren’t responding to my screams to get up and figure out why Connor was trying to wake me up. “What’s going on? Why did you wake me up? Is something happening?”

 

     “I think that something’s going on.” Connor’s voice was lower than it was before, and I sat up on my mattress. I could see what he was talking about, straight down the hallway from my cell, there were Feds that were talking to each other and walking towards my cell. The rest of the place that I was being held was empty, from what I could figure. “I just didn’t want you to be asleep when they came in. They played that trick on you once, and never again.”

 

     “Thank you for waking me, Connor.” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. Connor looked at me out of the corner of his eye, concern for me was the only thing on his mind. His eyes narrowed and my almost bit his lip in thought, but he hesitated at the last second and didn’t perform the action. “I really don’t want a repeat of what happened before. Thanks for filling me in, though.”

 

     “It’s the least I could do.” Connor dismissed my comment with a stronger apathy than usual. He studied my body language, and I pretended not to notice his eyes scanning my every muscle and movement. “Is something wrong, Hansen? You don’t seem like your normal self at all.”

 

     Taken aback by Connor’s directness, my fingers found the hem of my shirt and pulled on the soft fabric. My breath didn’t catch in my throat, and no fear or adrenaline washed into my blood. There wasn’t an emotional response that I could find, and I was both proud at myself and fearful of what I was becoming at the same time. Apathy was never something that had come to me, and now that I had it, I wasn’t sure if I wanted it. A pause, then speech.

 

     “I’ve been thrown around, shot and stitched up by Mr Murphy’s pawns.” Memories from the day’s events flashed before my eyes. I remembered each single strand of pain that I had had to endure, from the simple scrapes from the tree branches down to getting shot for the first (and hopefully last) time. “And that’s all that I’ve been through _physically._ Emotionally I’ve been cheated, been told lies that were supposed to be true and now I’ve developed the strongest feelings of fear and paranoia that I’ve ever had. Everything is just so fucked up, and I don’t know how to deal.”

 

     “Well, you’re not going to deal by cursing and letting negative emotions take ahold of you.” Connor replied, sitting on my shoulder as we both watched the Feds slowly walk closer and closer to my cell. They were taking their time, and I wasn’t sure that if was helping or hurting my mental state. “What’s going to help is thinking about how you’re going to find a way out of this, and soon. Mr Murphy can’t really try you for murder, just breaking and entering. You haven’t vandalized anything, or worked on any plot to hurt or remove someone from power. Everything is going to be fine.”

 

     “I just don’t see an end to this.” My headache was getting worse, and now I was remembering Shelia. I had no doubt that she’d be back again, Connor and I figured that she was sent in to kick Connor out without hurting him or I. “I just want it all to end right now. I want to go back home and have a boring dinner with my mom and lie to her about having friends so she doesn’t worry and answer Jared’s emails about English and math homework and then go to sleep and repeat the process until the end of time.”

 

     “Hey,” Connor pulled my head away from the Feds that were slowly getting closer and closer to my cell as he made himself full size and kneeled on the floor so our eyes would be level, “Look at me. We’re going to make it out of this, okay? Don’t _ever_ tell yourself that we’re not, because that just isn’t true, okay? We’re going to make it out of this – all of us – and then you’re going to email Jared and go out with Zoe and Alana’s going to tutor you and everything is going to be as it should be. Okay?”

 

     “Okay.” I let myself smile, because deep down I knew that Connor was right. After all, Zoe, Jared, Alana and I were only kids. They weren’t going to send a bunch of kids who were accidentally on the wrong side of the conflict of the Murphy family to jail, were they? I hoped not. “Thank you, Connor. I needed that.”

 

     “Just keep calm, okay?” Connor shrunk back down to his normal self. Behind me, I could hear the footsteps of the Feds louder than before. My apathy was gone, and each footfall sent another small wave of anxiety up my spine. “They aren’t going to hurt you. They already shot you, what could be worse? I mean, you, Evan Hansen, just survived getting shot. You can do anything.”

 

     “Not without you.” My voice was barely above a whisper, I couldn’t allow the Feds to hear any distinct weakness from me. I knew that they’d exploit it, one of them had already shot me for no reason. Well, I had moved quickly, but still, no reason! “Connor, they’re going to take you away again and I can’t stand that. I fall apart without you, you know that! I don’t want to deal with any more mind games!”

 

     “Evan Hansen doesn’t need a Squip.” Connor shook his head; his fingers were digging into my shoulder. I didn’t mind the pain, the pain meant that he was real, and that he was not going away anytime soon. “You’ve survived long enough without one. You’ve had years of practice. They’re going to question you, and you’re going to do amazing because there’s no way that you could possibly fuck up the truth. You can do this, okay?”

 

     “Yeah, yeah I can do this.” I steadied my breathing and cringed as I heard a knock on the bars of my cell. They were here.

 

     All at once, Connor closed his eyes and disappeared. I could feel his presence still in my mind, and I knew that the Feds hadn’t taken him away or replaced him with Shelia just yet. I hoped that they wouldn’t do that at any point, but I wasn’t too sure. These were people who were working for Mr Murphy that we were talking about, I could only imagine the things that they were capable of.

 

     _Look them in the eyes, hold your head up high._ Connor instructed, and I stood up and turned to the Feds. There were three of them in all, two of them were in full armor and face masks, their guns were pointed right at me. The third Fed was without armor, and she was wearing a simple blue sweater with a light grey pencil skirt. _Summon all the courage you require, and don’t throw away your shot. You can do this, Hansen. You have got to do this._

“Please stop all communications with your Squip, Mr Hansen.” The Fed without her armor had a pretty voice, it almost sounded fake. Her cold, green eyes cut into mine and I felt Connor cut off communications with me. “Your Squip is still in your head because we do not know where to put him at the moment. However, we will find a place later. Now, please come with me. There is no need for handcuffs, I do not think that you will try to stray away from us.”

 

     I didn’t know how to respond to the female Fed, I wasn’t sure if there was even a right way to respond to her. She pressed her hand up against a palm reader on the wall next to my cell, and the bars disappeared. I knew that most prison cells these days had bars that could be phased in and out, but I hadn’t yet grasped just how high tech the cell that I was in was. I knew that after the Second Civil War there were a lot of new technologies that were made, and phase matter was just one of those things.

 

      Phase matter was one of the greatest technological advances of the 22nd century. Phase matter was matter that could phase between being solid, liquid and gaseous forms at the click of a button. Because it was still being tested in some parts of the world, people would complain about different things happening to their phase matter. It wasn’t legal for anyone in the general public to own any, yet. That didn’t stop people from reverse-engineering their own phase matter, though. Because of the expense and the risk factors of phase matter, I could only imagine how dangerous these people thought I was.

 

    But, then again, I wasn’t going to be wearing handcuffs, so maybe the Feds were just messing with me. It did feel like some of this was just physiological warfare, and that the headache that I had was all part of a bigger plan. Or maybe the paranoia that I had picked up recently was just kicking in again and nothing bad was going to happen to me and I really had nothing to worry about. The only way to know was to follow the female Fed.

 

     “Please follow me, Mr Hansen.” The female Fed said, she seemed to be stretching out her words just so she could hear more of her own voice. I could tell right away that this woman and I were not going to be friends. “My guards and I will show you to where you will be questioned. I think that you’ll find that you have more fun being questioned than being stuck in this little room all day, with only your emotionally damaged and stolen Squip to keep you company.”

 

     The blow that the female Fed had struck was a low one, and I tried my hardest to ignore it. Couldn’t these people let up on Connor and figure out that I was innocent of most of the crimes that I was listed as having done? I mean, I wasn’t a murderer, and I could never be a murderer. I finally swallowed my lasting fear and stood up, I figured that the least I could do was follow the female Fed’s orders and not make her angry. An angry Fed was not someone who I wanted to be around.

 

     I walked out of my cell with my shoulders tensed, I tried to calm myself, but it was no use. I was going to be stressed and worried no matter what, it wasn’t like that was just going to go away anytime soon. Once I had walked out of the cell, the bars phased right back into place. It was at that second that I realized that I had a tag in me now. I figured that after I had gotten medical attention for the bullet wound, the Feds must have put a tag under my skin somewhere. It was just one more precaution so that they could find me in case I tried to run away from them.

 

      “My name is Heather, Mr Hansen.” The female Fed, Heather, told me as she led down the hallway that she had walked down to get to me. I saw that lined all along the walls were small security cameras and small turrets. Part of me wondered if Connor could hack into those things, but something told me that he couldn’t. “I am your personal escort throughout this place. That means that when someone calls for you, I will be the one who is going to come and get you. We will get to know each other pretty well, I am guessing. Are you excited?”

 

     Heather looked back at me, and I realized that she actually wanted me to answer her question. Her eyes cut into my body, and I could almost feel her stare tearing my internal organs apart. I gulped and bit my lip, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t be taken the wrong way. I mean, of course I wasn’t having fun, but I didn’t want the people here to think that I was nothing but a rude teenager, that wouldn’t help my case at all.

 

     “Um, I think that it is going to be nice to get to know you, Heather.” My voice was so close to a stutter, but I stopped myself. Now was _not_ the time to freak out and show any weakness. I was about to be questioned, and I didn’t want Heather or her guards to doubt me, even if they weren’t the ones asking the questions. “Having a friend here will be nice. You seem like a nice person.”

 

     “Thank you!” Heather exclaimed, pressing a hand to her chest dramatically. Her smile looked fake, she was just putting on a show. She flipped her dark brown hair and her eyes sparkled with dark emotions and I wanted to take a step away from her. In fact, I wanted to be as far away from her as possible. “That is so sweet, Mr Hansen! However, we cannot be friends. I am truly sorry, but I am just your escort. And you have no chance with me besides.”

 

     It took all of my self-control to say something regarding her relationship status. Who would ever date her? Yeah, some men might find her pretty. Beautiful, even, but she was still so rude and condescending. There was something off about her, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I just stayed silent at her comment, I didn’t want to dig myself a hole. She noticed the lapse in conversation, and she was about to say something else when we came to a door.

 

     It was a large, metal door that was made out of the most dingy and opaque metal I had ever seen. Why the door looked the way it did piqued my interest, but I dared not open my mouth and ask, that could get me in trouble. As Heather walked up to the door, the door disappeared, it was made of phase matter. That made more sense as to why it looked the way that it did, it wasn’t anything too special.

 

     “Please take a seat, Mr Hansen.” Heather said as she led me into the room, it was sparsely furnished. As if realizing something that she had hoped to forget, her face turned from calm and peaceful to angry and disappointed. Her voice reflected her expression, her words turning to acid and daggers. “We will wait here for Mr O’Connell.”

 

     The room was small, only about thirty feet by thirty feet. The ceiling was pretty low, but I didn’t have to worry about standing up or anything. There was a metal table and two wooden chairs one of side of the table, and just one on the other side. Heather sat on the side with the two chairs, her guards stayed right at the doorframe. They weren’t aiming their guns at anything, they just held them like they were nothing but toys, and not deadly weapons.

 

     An awkward silence fell over the room, and Heather stared off into space while I traced where Connor’s name should have been on my cast. When I got shot, I guess that my cast needed to come off and be replaced with new one. I felt almost naked without Connor’s name on my cast, it was just so strange not have the one constant of the past few days. I sighed as I realized that I’d never get to have Connor write his name on my cast again. Now who would pretend to be my friend?

 

     “Heather, it’s good to see you.” A male voice snapped me out of my moping. My head shot up to see a very burly man step through the doorway, his eyes fell onto Heather with disdain. He clearly wasn’t very happy to see her, but he was trying to be professional. “I don’t think that you need to be around here any longer, aren’t there other things you should be attending to?”

 

     “Yes.” Heather bristled, poison dripped from her words. “I _do_ have better things to be doing right now, so there’s no reason for me to be here anymore. Goodbye, Mr Hansen, Mr O’Connell.”

 

      Mr O’Connell and I watched Heather get up and walk away, and her guards followed her. I almost felt bad for her guards, they had to deal with her all day and they didn’t seem to get a break. As Heather walked back through the doorway again, the phase matter went back to being fully stable. A metal door now stood between me and the rest of the prison. Somehow, that thought was almost reassuring.

 

      “I apologize for her, Mr Hansen.” Mr O’Connell didn’t sound very sorry, and I wondered if lying through his teeth was his thing. He had a sharp, angular face and large green eyes that looked emotionless. He was dressed just like Heather’s guards, only he had a smaller gun – a pistol, I think – at his belt. “Now, why don’t we start the questioning? I just want you to know that I have a Squip in your head right now, so I will know if you’re lying. Her name is Shelia, you might remember her.”

 

     “She’s the one who knocked me out.” I remembered aloud, and Mr O’Connell smiled evilly. He seemed to think that what Shelia did to me was almost funny, and it really made me not like him right away. Now I could understand why Heather didn’t want to be anywhere near this man, she had the right idea.

 

     _I just messed with a few of your bodily functions to allow you to become so shocked that you fell asleep._ Shelia defended herself, though I wasn’t sure that she was only making things worse, and that no amount of defense on her account out make what she did to me okay. _I understand if you do not wish to speak to me, you humans can be fickle like that sometimes. Let’s hope that that ends soon, I am your friend, Mr Hansen. I mean that._

I wished that Shelia had some ‘off’ button that I could just press and throw her out of my head. I hated the idea that anyone other than Connor was in my head and looking through my memories to tell if I was lying or not. Part of me wondered why there even needed to be a questioning, since Shelia could already figure out what I had and had not done. I knew that there was probably some law somewhere that made it illegal for that to happen, but I still didn’t understand why the skipped the questioning and went right to sifting through my memories.

 

      “Yes, I guess that that might be how you remember her.” Mr O’Connell smiled, it was as if he saw me as a small child who could be coaxed into anything if he tried hard enough. His eyes glowed with an emotion I couldn’t quite place, but I didn’t like it. “But Shelia is one of the best Squips we have on the force. She usually helps when someone who we’re trying to catch injures themselves. She makes sure that they don’t lash out and hurt anyone, it keeps things calm and peaceful. Her work is very appreciated.”

 

      “Isn’t that an invasion of personal privacy?” I asked, truly wondering. I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, and thankfully, my question didn’t come across as sarcastic or rude. Mr O’Connell nodded along and listened to me, not once did he try to shut me down. “I mean, just placing a Squip in someone’s head for the express purpose of knowing if they were lying? Isn’t there some code of ethics that keeps you from doing that?”

 

      “You pretty much waive away all of those rights as soon as you put a Squip in your head.” Mr O’Connell shrugged, answering my question seemed almost boring to him. Then his posture changed, and he went from at least somewhat casual to fully business, leaning over the table towards me. “Now, you’ve stalled enough. We have things to talk about, things to do. First of all, I want to hear about the death of Connor Murphy from your own memory.”

 

      “Um, well, he killed himself.” Suddenly I was freaking out, why hadn’t I memorized the dates that everything had happened? I could remember waking up to a horrible pain on Friday night, so I figured that going to with Friday would be my best bet. And why hadn’t I asked Connor more questions about his death? Those could help me right about now. “It was last Friday when he died, and it was in a park. He over dosed, but he didn’t tell me what on.”

 

      “So, you talked to him?” Mr O’Connell wasn’t giving the skeptical smile that most people did when they heard about Connor. He was acting as if a person coming back from the dead as Squip was just a normal occurrence in his life. “He was your Squip, correct? Can you tell me when he became your Squip? Try to be as exact as you can, times really matter in this investigation.”

 

     “It was the Friday night when he became my Squip.” I felt a tad bit more relaxed, at least this was something that I knew off of the top of my head. “It was really early in the morning, about two or three. I’ve never had a Squip in my head before, so I didn’t understand what the pain was from. I learned that it was from a Squip due to the voice in my head, though. Then Connor Murphy was standing over me, as my Squip.”

 

      “Wait, you said that you’d never had a Squip before Connor?” Mr O’Connell seemed intrigued by this, he narrowed his eyes as he spoke. I worried that I might have said something wrong, I had omitted the fact that when I was little I wasn’t able to put a Squip in my head for reasons that Squip doctors couldn’t figure. “But you had the implants, that’s how Connor Murphy was in your head. Squips need to have the implants in their host’s head to be able to exist inside of the host’s head.”

 

      “When I was ten, I was given two different Squips.” I tried to slow my speech, I felt like I had said something very, very wrong. I could only imagine what Shelia was doing right now in my head, probably looking through my memories to confirm or deny my words. “They both didn’t work, but my mom didn’t want to go through the procedure to take the Squip implants out. She worried that it would be too dangerous, and she didn’t want me to get hurt by something that I didn’t need to be hurt by.”

 

     “I see.” Mr O’Connell seemed to make a mental note of that for future use. I wondered what he’d use the information for in the future, but part of me thought that I probably didn’t want to know. “So, if you couldn’t have a Squip, then how do you explain Connor Murphy in your head?”

 

     I paused before answering, this was a tough one. Part of me wanted to talk about Alana, Zoe, Jared and I’s meeting to talk about Connor and what had happened the night he died, but another part of me told me that that was a stupid choice. They were going to find out about Alana, and they would find out about Jared working with Mr Murphy, and I wasn’t sure if the Feds knew about that yet. I didn’t want to betray anyone, but I also didn’t want Connor to be taken away from me again.

 

     “I can’t really explain it.” I wasn’t lying, I really didn’t fully understand how or why it happened. I could kind of remember Alana’s spiel about distance to where Connor died and stuff, but for the most part, I was useless when it came to information about why Connor Murphy was my Squip. “All I know is that after Connor died, he ended up in my head. He didn’t know any of the normal Squip knowledge that Squips are coded to know, but I don’t know if that’s important information.”

 

      “So, he didn’t understand it either?” Mr O’Connell seemed like he was trying to piece everything together. I wondered dully if anyone had even bothered to fill him in on what was happening, it seemed like the Feds should be more productive and organized than this. “He just knew that one minute he was dead, and the next he was in your bedroom at the dead of night?”

 

     “That’s what he told me.” I nodded, confirming Mr O’Connell’s words. Mr O’Connell seemed happy about what I was telling him, and he looked up at the security camera in the corner of the room affectionately. The question of who he was trying to communicate with crossed my mind, but I ignored it. I had more important things to worry about. “Neither of us really understand how or why any of these events happened. I just know that he popped up in my head, and that I wanted to help him figure out why he was a Squip.”

 

     “So, you had some help from Connor’s former sister, Zoe Murphy, to break into Larry Murphy’s study?” Mr O’Connell seemed to take pride in asking this question. I knew that we would come here eventually, but I also knew that as soon as we came here that there was no going back. I had to answer his question, and I couldn’t get away from it. “You then proceeded to steal hundreds of documents. We found them in your bedroom, but it seemed like you had an incomplete set.”

 

     “I didn’t pick out the documents that Zoe and I took.” I spoke slowly, trying to think one last time about what I was saying while I said it. Mr O’Connell studied my expression, it was like he was waiting for me to slip up and saying something wrong. “She just handed them to me. I kept some of them as precautionary measure, just to make sure that no one would take all of the blame for anything in case we were found.”

 

     “There was no one else who received other documents?” Mr O’Connell could almost tell that I was lying. I knew that my lies weren’t the best, but I hadn’t broken down yet. I just needed to hang on a little bit longer, for my friend’s sakes. “And there was no other purpose of putting the documents in other people’s hands? No other reason that you kept them instead of shredding them or burning them?”

 

     “I don’t know if anyone else also got documents.” I actually couldn’t remember if Jared had gotten any of the documents or not. So much had happened since Wednesday night, everything just blurred together at a certain point. “I just know that I had some and that Zoe had some. I was told that the purpose of keeping the documents was to keep them safe, but I believe that part of the reason that we kept them was as insurance for ourselves.”

 

     “But you were kept mostly in the dark?” Mr O’Connell seemed to believe me more. It was almost like he was coming to trust me. A sense of near calm fell into the sea of fear and anxiety that was my soul at this current moment. “You weren’t told many things? Do you know why you were kept in the dark?”

 

     “No, I don’t know why I was kept in the dark.” I admitted, feeling almost betrayed by my friends. Had they kept me in the dark for a reason? Or was it just bad communication? I felt like I had been left out of something important, and now I was suffering. My story wasn’t going to match up. “I just know that my friends made a lot of choices without my knowledge. I don’t think that they did anything important without me, but there’s still the chance that they did.”

 

     “What about your mother?” Mr O’Connell asked, and my blood went cold. My mother! How had I forgotten about her, of course she would be thrown into this mess, too! She would have just as much to deal with as I would, she wouldn’t have any answers, unlike my friends and I. “Why was she kept in the dark? I questioned her myself, and she didn’t seem to know anything about Connor. She called him. . . What was it, ‘Franta’? Care to explain?”

 

     “It was Connor’s idea to create a fake persona for himself.” I explained, thinking back to my first Squip call with Jared in which ‘Franta’ showed up for the first time. “Connor didn’t want people to recognize him, so he dressed up and assumed a different name. It was also Connor’s idea to keep our parents in the dark, in case something like this happened. That way they wouldn’t be in trouble, and they wouldn’t have to worry about being found guilty of anything. Everything, for the most part, was deliberate.”

 

     “So, keeping you out of the discussion was deliberate?” Mr O’Connell sounded confused, but I could tell that it was fake. Still, it hurt that he was smart enough to bring it up. I guess that I hadn’t ever thought about it, but it was true. “I take it that you’re the expendable one of the group? The one who wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for Connor being in your head. I mean, before this you had no friends. You’re going to leave this place with just as many friends as you started with, and many more enemies.”

 

     I turned away from Mr O’Connell, I didn’t want to look at him anymore. Who was I kidding, he was so correct about my ‘friends’. The only reason that they kept me around was because of the fact that Connor was in my head, if he hadn’t died I wouldn’t be here. Something acute to anger swelled up in my heart as I thought about Connor, how dare he do this to me? Get me arrested? Make me break into private property (twice, I might add)?

 

     “Why are you telling me this?” My voice broke, my throat felt raw. Mr O’Connell didn’t betray any emotion on his face, and I could feel tears running down my face. I swiped at them with my sleeve, but it was useless. “What is the purpose of this? I just don’t understand! All of this is just smoke and mirrors, I know that you’re working for Mr Murphy! Don’t tell me differently, because it won’t convince me! I know that no one is going to leave here without paying a price, and I just _need_ what my price is so that can I stop worrying about it!”

 

     “So, that’s what you think of us? Think about me?” Mr O’Connell looked triumphant, and a horrible feeling curled in my stomach. I had just played right into his hands, I had had the emotional reaction that he wanted me to have. I cursed myself, and I just wanted the mind games to end, I needed Connor and Zoe and Jared and Alana! “Well, thank you for telling me your biggest fears. And I can neither confirm nor deny that I’m working with a one Mr Murphy, but I’ll let you know how it works out for me later.”

 

     “I’ve been played.” I realized, it took all of my self-control to not break out in more tears than before. Mr O’Connell chuckled at my anguish, it was a horribly evil sound. It seemed like the villains were all working against me and there was no way for me to win, I would forever be their pawn. “How long has this been going on? You knew about Tuesday night, didn’t you? This is all just a show, a ploy, right?”

 

     “You’re going to get a long time in prison.” Mr O’Connell nodded, pride and corrupted happiness radiated off of him. “We’ve known from the moment that Connor died that something was going to happen. The trouble is, we weren’t sure where Connor went. Much to our dismay, we didn’t find him until you showed up with him at the school, that was when you were back ‘online’ as we call it.”

 

     “Now, don’t do all of the fun stuff without me.” I heard a different male voice say, and my eyes shot up and were met with Mr Murphy. I half expected him to be in some kind of cape and dressed in just dark colors. He looked tired and worn out instead, with bags under his eyes and his shoulders were down as far as they could go. He didn’t look like he had some evil plan, he looked like he was recovering from someone else’s evil plan. “I wanted to be able to tell some of that to our dear Evan Hansen.”

 

     Mr Murphy walked fully into the room, and he patted my head with his left hand for a few seconds, before throwing something onto the table with his right hand. It looked like a black cube, with little LED lights placed all around it periodically at each corner and median on the cube. The LED lights glowed a perfect light grey, almost like the aura that surrounded Connor as a Squip. I didn’t know what to do about or with the cube, so I just eyed it wearily.

 

     “Now, Mr O’Connell, I’ve loved hearing you talk to our dear Evan Hansen,” Mr Murphy’s voice didn’t sound triumphant, but rather tired. He looked like he needed a coffee, I could almost see the pounding headache that the bright lights in this room were giving him. “He’s had enough of talking to you, we have enough legitimate footage to last us for a while. We might need some more later, but that will come with time. You are dismissed.”

 

     “Yes, sir.” Mr O’Connell nodded at Mr Murphy and then quickly got up and left the room as fast as he could without breaking into a run. I had never seen a man flee Mr Murphy’s presence so quickly, and I wondered if Mr Murphy was used to it by now.

 

     With a sigh, Mr Murphy sat down. He was seated in the chair next to the one that Mr O’Connell had just sat in less than a minute ago, and he leaned over the table, lacing his fingers together in a way that suggested that he might start praying. He looked at me with a tired expression, and he ran a hand through his hair. All of this felt wrong, he was supposed to be the villain, right? The person who makes everything horrible and then comes back to brag about it later! Not this, not someone who was worn out and looked like he had had enough life for one lifetime.

 

     “Mr Hansen, today has been a long day for me.” Mr Murphy sighed and closed his eyes as he talked. He was breathing slowly, he seemed like he was trying to calm himself down. Maybe this was the calm before the storm? “A very, very long day. Do you know what it feels like to arrest your own daughter after your son is dead? Let me paint you a picture, it’s pretty much nothing more than your wife yelling at you over the phone for forty-five minutes.”

 

      “I don’t know what to say to that.” I admitted, I wasn’t sure if there was anything that I could say. This whole situation was very puzzling, how was I supposed to respond to this? How did he expect me to respond to this? “Does this mean that you’re letting us go? Are the charges being dropped?”

 

     “No, none of that is happening.” Mr Murphy seemed to perk up a little bit at the idea of ruining my dream. “In fact, you’re never going anywhere. This is all part of a larger plan to get SquipTech out of hot water for creating a full AI Squip, raising said AI as a human for seventeen years and then allowing the AI to kill himself. This is one huge PR mess, and we _need_ something to take the heat off of it. A teenage vandal and murder story takes the heat off of SquipTech, at least for a little while longer.”

 

     “So, you’re going to make it seem like I murdered Connor for his Squip or something?” I asked, trying to mentally through the pieces together. Mr Murphy seemed almost impressed that I had said that, but I could still see some smugness in his body language. That was the only way that he could yell at my friends and I without getting himself or his company in trouble for breaking laws. Lots of laws.

 

     “I’m not surprised that you got that, Hansen.” Connor’s voice floated to my ears, and I looked down to see Connor standing on the table between Mr Murphy and I. Connor gave me a little wave as I felt relief flood me. Connor was back! He was safe! And he was in Mr Murphy’s hands again. “See, your plan is so shitty that even seventeen-year-olds are guessing them. What does that say anything to you about your PR representatives? They sure as _Hell_ don’t know what they’re doing, that’s what it says.”

 

     “Now, now, Connor, there’s no need for this.” Mr Murphy shook his head slowly, the whole motion sent shivers up my spine. Could he possibly get more repulsive or evil? I wasn’t sure that that was possible. “What there is a need for is a location on your last friend, Alana Beck? She decided to take her Squip out of her head, and now we can’t track her down. We’ve been trying, but no one seems to know where she is. So, Evan Hansen, I’m asking your help to find her.”

 

     “You want me to give up my friend?” I felt hurt that Mr Murphy would even suggest that I’d do that. Did I seem like that kind of person to him? Did I seem like that kind of person to others? Did people see a liar and a horrible person when they saw me? Did they see the same when they looked at Mr Murphy? “I would never! Besides, I don’t even know where she is. She didn’t exactly tell me, so I’m kind of short of useless in this matter. Or more than useless, depending on how you look at it.”

 

     “All I’m asking for is for you to help me locate her so that I can find her and arrest her.” Mr Murphy shrugged. I made a face at him, I was doubting whether or not he knew what he was asking me to do. Give up my friend to _just_ have her arrested? No way in Hell! “There’s nothing more attached to this. She’ll be taken care of, but I need all of the pieces of the puzzle in front of me so that I can paint the picture the way that it should be painted so that the Feds find me innocent.”

 

     “What about Connor’s death?” I asked, my voice tiny. I knew that if anyone else would have asked the question, their voice would have been higher and they would have raised their voice and showed some anger, but I was too exhausted. It wasn’t like getting angry was going to help anything, besides. “It was clearly an overdose. How are you going to overcome that road block? Or the fact that Connor and I never knew each other? Or the fact that Connor _didn’t have a Squip?”_

“Those are such silly things that I’ve already solved.” Mr Murphy laughed. It was a cruel, horrible sound, and color flashed onto his face. He was no longer the worn-down ruffian that he was before. No, now he was the evil villain who was going to kill anyone that he wanted to. My fears had been realized. “You can pay anyone to say anything, so the friendship is taken care of. Connor already pretended that he had a Squip before, so he played into my plans without knowing it. As for the death, you can always pay someone to fake an autopsy.”

 

     “All I want to know is, how long have you had this plan?” Connor’s hair was falling into his eyes, and his voice sounded tired yet vicious. I wondered how he was able to give off the perfect defeated yet still snarky teenager feeling, he was nailing it. “The night of my death? Before then? When Cynthia said that she was pregnant for the first time? Or was it later, when your real son got sick? Or when someone told you that you could earn six figures if you became a lying bastard?”

 

     “If you _must_ know, I’ve had most of this plan created after your first attempt on your life.” Mr Murphy state clearly, and I almost expected him to look at his nails as he talked. He sounded like he couldn’t care less, Connor had picked up the same tone. “That was when I started playing with the PR stuff and discussing the idea of your premature death with my colleagues. I paid off some Feds right then and there, and I was working on some way to end the experiment. If you would have just waited just one more day to finally kill yourself, this story would be very different.”

 

      “You never wanted to stop me, did you?” Connor lifted his head, tears streaming down his face. It was then that I realized that this was Connor’s moment, not mine. This was when Connor finally faced everything that was working against him and fought back with just as much determination and grit. “You _wanted_ me to die, didn’t you? You knew that if I died, I would be more valuable, I’d finally be free of that old body! You never wanted to stop me, and that’s why you didn’t.”

 

     Silence fell over the room. It was the worst kind of the silence, the kind that makes you deaf to suffering and leaves emotional scars. Connor’s hands were curled into claws and his upper lip was curled in anger, this was his battle and he was going to win it. It didn’t matter that ‘winning’ meant tearing his own heart out and allowing it to die from too much truth right there in front of everyone. Because, in the end, Mr Murphy was still Connor’s father, if not a biological one.

 

     “I made what you wanted work for me.” Mr Murphy replied, but I could see that he was sparing Connor’s feelings. I couldn’t prove it, but I had a feeling. Anger welled up in me, couldn’t Mr Murphy choose if he was going to be a horrible dad or not? Why did things have to get muddied by emotions? Why couldn’t the truth just live happily? “It didn’t matter much to me either way, I just cared that I got my company out of hot water. Do you have any idea how many laws you break just by existing?”

 

      “Then why even bring me into this world?” Connor screamed, his tears came faster now. He pressed his left hand to his chest, and accusingly pointed his right pointer finger at his father. He looked ready to break, yet somehow it was captivating to see. “Why would you bring me into the world if I would only break laws? Why would you torture me like this? For fun? To make money? I’m a not a human being, and I’m not just some AI that can’t feel emotions! I don’t know _what_ I am, and I have to live with that! How could you create me when you knew that this would be my fate?”

 

     “Because sometimes science calls for it.” Mr Murphy replied, keeping a straight face as his son poured out his emotions for the world to see. “You don’t understand it now, because you’re too young, but if you kill one man, and you’re a murderer. Kill a thousand men, and you’re a knight. Kill them all, and you’re a conqueror. Bring something new into the world, and you’re a _god._ Connor Murphy, I brought you into this world, and I will _not_ hesitate to take you out of it.”

 

     “You’re no god of mine.” Connor sneered, and he wiped away the last of his tears. Only anger, raw and bloody was left in him. He was a force to be reckoned with, and I was suddenly happy that Connor and I were friends instead of enemies. “I worship no one, and I’d _never_ worship someone as human as you. You lie and cheat and steal and use people as pawns. So, tell me, did you think of your family as just more pawns? Did you ever care for your daughter or son? Or Cynthia?”

 

     “Of course I cared for my wife.” Mr Murphy almost looked hurt. He was taken aback, although I guess that it was because he could see that his son was no longer a child. No, now Connor was someone who could see through lies. He no longer the small, naïve child that he was years ago. “I mean, I guess that it’s faded in recent years. But who can blame me? She’s average, if that. Besides, there are so many things to do for the only thing that matters in my life, SquipTech. I can’t stop working just because my wife misses me.”

 

     “So, you don’t even care that she waited for you?” Connor snarled, stepping forward towards his father menacingly. He less than a foot tall, and Mr Murphy could have shut him down in a second, yet it somehow felt like a real fight. Connor had enough self-hatred to meet up with Mr Murphy’s apparent lack of guilt. “Because I remember that. I remember that we’d stop things just because you decided that it wouldn’t work. We _trusted_ you, I would almost go as far as saying that we loved you. And you. . . I wouldn’t say betrayed us, but what you did was still fucked up. What you’re _doing_ is fucked up.”

 

     “There’s no need to use that kind of language, Connor.” Mr Murphy chastised, his voice turned snippy. He looked like he was ready to make Connor pay for his words, but I wasn’t sure how Mr Murphy was going to do that. Connor was a computer program, after all. “But we’re done talking about what has past. Right now, I need to know whether or not you’ll help me find Alana Beck. If you help me, I can promise me that your sentence will be lessened.”

 

      “Not a chance in Hell.” Connor spat, he seemed to hate the idea that his father would even entertain the idea that he would give up a friend to something horrible. “There’s no way-”

 

     “Not you, _son.”_ Mr Murphy spoke angrily, almost matching the anger that Connor had thrown at him. He turned his attention away from Connor and looked me in the eyes, and my skin crawled as all of Mr Murphy’s attention was focused right on me for a few seconds. “Will you, Evan Hansen, help us find Alana Beck? There will be things that come out of it for you. You’ll get a lesser sentence, a new Squip, maybe even some other things if you help me and my colleagues again. What do you say?”

 

     “I’d never betray my friend.” I shook my head, shocked that Mr Murphy believed that I would do such a thing as betray someone who had helped me, who had trusted me. Mr Murphy’s face showed his anger, he was barely holding it all together. Part of me wondered what he was going to get while working with teenagers. “She’s my friend, and I could never do that to her. I will not help you, no way in Hell.”

 

     Connor looked over at me, giving me a grateful smile and his eyes showed how happy he was that he had me around. Pride swelled in my chest, and I stared daggers at Mr Murphy. I wasn’t sure that I had ever felt this confident, I felt like I could do anything. Mr Murphy put his head in his hands, and part of my pride died down. I didn’t want to make the man feel so bad, just show him that I wasn’t going to fall just so that he could rise.

 

     But, as I watched Mr Murphy’s body move, I knew that I had no broken him. I could hear him chuckle darkly to himself, and Connor and I exchanged a small look of fear. I bit my lip as I watched Mr Murphy look up from his hands, his eyes showed a dangerous fire that no would make any man pale. This wasn’t the same man that had been sitting in front of me before, this was someone different. Someone who believed that his way was the only way, and that the ends would forever justify the means.

 

     “If you little _brats_ won’t help me of your own accord, then I’ll just have to make you help me without your consent!” Mr Murphy growled, picking up the little cube that I was assuming where Connor was currently located, computer-wise. Fear flashed across Connor’s face, and across my soul. “Then you’ll see who is the standing up as the ashes fall down onto you and you drown in the fallout of your choices!”

 

     Fear built in my stomach, threating to make me wretch. This was too much, it was all over from here, there was no coming back. I couldn’t tell if Connor felt the same way, a poker face spread out across his old expression of fear. Mr Murphy was the evil villain from the storybooks now, all he was missing was a song made by some Disney song writer. Suddenly, a ding cut through the silence, and we all looked around, to find out where the noise came from. It sounded like the iPhone notification sound, but who still had an iPhone these days? And who texted?

 

     Sadly, both of those things were true to me. Mr Murphy rolled his eyes in disgust, and threw the cube he was holding back onto the table as he fished his iPhone from his back pocket. The cube went tumbling, but I caught it before it hit the ground. Connor sent me a thankful look as I set the cube back onto the table where it couldn’t be harmed. Connor and I watched Mr Murphy out of the corner of our eyes, he held his iPhone like a parent; he held it with one hand then touched the screen with the pointer finger of the other hand.

 

     “Miss Beck decides to show up, finally.” Mr Murphy sounded pleased, and he tapped his foot on the ground to a rhythm that only he could hear. It sounded like he was trying to make a beat that sounded something like some terrible pop music that people played on the radio. “She says to meet her in an old warehouse and to bring you two, Jared and Zoe. She wants to make a deal with me to take you away from me.”

 

     Connor and I looked at each with worried etched across our faces. Had Alana been caught? Had she turned herself in? Had Zoe or Jared taken the deal and turned her in? What did that mean for the rest of us? Questions floated through my head, and I wanted nothing more than to ask Connor these same questions without speaking. Sadly, we no longer had a telepathic link, as Connor wasn’t currently inside of the implants. I just realized it then, but I couldn’t feel Shelia’s presence anymore.

 

      “What?” Connor almost yelled, I wasn’t sure what he was having a hard time believing. He went from calm and composed to outright angry again, and I wondered how someone so small could be so angry all the time. “No way, she would never _ever_ give herself up, she’s too smart to give herself up like that! That cannot be Alana!”

 

     Mr Murphy scoffed, and showed Connor and I his phone’s screen. The screen showed a picture of Alana with her backup Squip hovering above her shoulder (a girl who was dressed much like Zoe, and looked kind of like Alana. I figured that Alana hadn’t but much thought into the design for a replacement Squip that she’d only have for a short time.). Alana was dressed in a baggy hoodie and slightly ripped jeans, and she was flipping off the camera, and so was her Squip. She was also sticking her tongue out, she was just begging Mr Murphy and his Fed goons to come down and find her.

 

     And, I knew that she was counting on just that to happen. She had a plan, I was sure of it. I wasn’t sure if I would have done the same thing or her plan would be dangerous or risky in the slightest, but I knew that I trusted Alana. And, right now was the time to show my trust for her and take her silent word for it that she had everything under control. Because she was the kind of person that always everything under control. Or, at least, I hoped so.

 

     “So, boys, what do you say?” Mr Murphy turned his phone off and put it back in his back pocket, another evil smile (he had given Connor and I too many to count at this point) was poised on his face. “Do you want to go and find Alana Beck and see what she wants from us?”

 

     Without answering, I looked at Connor. We locked eyes, an unspoken communication passed between us. It was now or never, we needed to trust Alana. Connor gave me the tiniest nod, it was so small that Mr Murphy wouldn’t see it unless he was looking for it, which he wasn’t. I sighed lightly and turned to Mr Murphy, who I knew was going to take us to see Alana whether we wanted to go or not.

 

     “Let’s go.” I said, bravery filled my voice. I made sure not to get too cocky, lest Connor and I lost the ability to go and see Alana if I acted out and was rude. My voice hung in the air, the sound of it seemed to seep into everything in the room. It was the perfect phrase, the perfect amount of courage and desire to place trust in people. Nothing could ever take away the way that my voice had just sounded, not even the fact that I was still a pawn.

 

     I had a hard time believing that there was a better sound anywhere in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I do NOT agree with Evan that there isn't a better sound than his voice out there. I mean, there's the sound of angels. Maybe Lin Manuel Miranda, or Roger Waters or David Gilmore. But those are just the best things that anyone could listen to.  
> Also, next chapter is one that I've been looking forward to for a long time! So much foreshadowing has been sprinkled around about the events of next chapter, I didn't want it to be too obvious but I didn't want to catch anyone off-guard.  
> Thank you so much to anyone who reads my stories, even these boring end notes. It makes my day.  
> Have a great day, guys!


	14. And The Kingdom Will Weep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan, Zoe and Jared are dragged along to the deal that Alana and Mr Murphy are trying to create.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not as long as what's normal for this story, but all I can say is that this chapter was not as easy to write as most of the other chapters in this story.  
> I wrote this chapter while I was running on less sleep than normal, so I will admit that there are probably more editing errors than usual, so you'll just have to bear with me.  
> This chapter has a blood/gore warning on it, so I'm just warning everyone now.  
> Enjoy!

“Zoe?”

 

     My voice cut across the empty space between Zoe and I, which was the small (yet, very vast to me after being inside of my cell for forty-five minutes while Mr Murphy collected Zoe and Jared) space that was within the back of a Honda Civic. Zoe’s ears perked up when she saw me, and happiness and calmness flashed across her face like lightning striking a pool of water. Her body relaxed when she saw me, I could hear her sigh lightly as she climbed into the back of the Honda Civic with me.

 

     “Evan!” Zoe exclaimed and threw her arms around my neck. For a second, I froze. I wasn’t sure what to do in this moment. The girl who I had been watching from afar for years now was _hugging me,_ while we were sitting together in the back of an undercover cop car. Not exactly the place where I pictured our first hug, but I was going to take what I could get. I mirrored her action, and threw my arms around her body, happy to feel her close.

 

     “Get off of my sister.” Connor growled, loud enough for both Zoe and I to hear. Zoe’s eyes widened when she heard Connor’s voice, and she pulled away from me quickly and began searching around for her brother. Zoe seemed happy to see anyone who wasn’t going to convict her for crimes she hadn’t committed. Connor sat on my shoulder, grinning at his sister. “Zoe, it’s great to see you again.”

 

      “Connor.” Zoe smiled, not showing the same happiness that she felt with me when she talked to Connor. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign, or a bad sign. I wasn’t very good at reading girls, they were somewhat of a mystery to me, and I feared that they always would be. “It’s so great to see both of you again! I missed both of you so much! How did they find you?”

 

     Zoe’s eyes were curious, yet they also sparkled with something else. Something dark, an emotion that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see out of Zoe Murphy. I bit my lip, feeling the weight of my new cast like two tons of bricks. I wasn’t sure what to tell her. Should I tell her that I ran away from my problems like a coward and then gave into the physiological tricks of Mr Murphy’s accomplice, Mr O’Connell?

 

     _Help._ I begged lightly, trying in vain to get Connor to help me figure out the right answer.

 

     _Nope._ Connor replied, I could almost hear the sarcastic and snarky smile in his tone of voice. Or thought? I still hadn’t fully grasped if telepathic communication was talking or not. I thought that it was. _This is all up to you. You have to think of some way to tell my sister about what happened. If you want to date her, you need to get at least somewhat good at talking to her and omitting information._

 

     “Evan?” Zoe leaned towards me, one of her eyebrows was cocked as she studied me with a puzzled expression on her face. Her voice was small, almost as if she were afraid that if she talked too loud that I’d shatter. “Is something wrong? Did something happen? Do you know why we’re here right now? No one is answering any of my questions, and I haven’t seen Jared yet.”

 

     “Yeah, Zoe, everything’s fine.” I gave Zoe my best smile, and I tried to put on a show to show her that I was okay. She didn’t look convinced, and the fact that I hadn’t answered any of her questions wasn’t helping. “I was found because of the footage that Jared showed Mr Murphy had me on it. Connor told me to run away from the Feds that were at my house. I almost got away, but one of them spotted me and I jogged to the park and climbed a tree. They cornered me there. Also, I got shot.”

 

     “You got _shot?”_ Zoe’s voice dropped down to almost nothing, her face showed her awe. Anger came next, she hated the idea that someone would not only try to hurt me, but succeed at hurting me. “Are you okay? Where did they shoot you? Do you know who shot you, so we can repay them in full?”

 

      Zoe’s body tensed up, she looked like she wanted to make someone pay for their actions. It reminded me a lot of the way that Connor acted when he figured out that people were trying to hurt other people that he heard about. Zoe placed her hands on her knees as she moved to the other side of the car, clearly liking the small amount of dead space between us. I couldn’t blame her, empty space was something that calmed me down, it was nice to not have to worry about being cramped again.

 

      I wrung my hands out as I thought of a good reply to Zoe’s last comment. There had to be something good to say, there _had_ to be some kind of explanation that would not only make her calm down, but show her that I could take care of myself. Connor let me know that there was no way that I could actually take care of myself all alone in a quiet and snarky voice, but I ignored him. As far as I was concerned, I had this.

 

     “It’s nothing, Zoe, really.” I backtracked, sorry that I had ever told Zoe I had gotten shot. The expression on Zoe’s face – her eyebrows laced together thoughtfully, her lips pursed perfectly – told me that she wasn’t going to give up on this topic. I sighed and gave in, trying to think of the best way to tell me story to her. “So, I got shot in the arm after moving too fast because I was afraid of some thunder. To be fair, I was outside, under a tree in a thunderstorm. It was totally my fault, and I don’t blame the guy who shot me. But I do know what’s happening.”

 

     “Are we being released?” Hope swelled in Zoe’s eyes, she looked like someone had just told her that they could bring Alex back from the dead to be her dog again. I hated to crush her hope, but I knew that it would have to come at some time. “I _hated_ being in prison, even for a small period of time. God, just imagine the people who have to deal with years of imprisonment. That must be Hell.”

 

     “We’re not being released.” I shook my head, not wanting to meet Zoe’s eyes. I didn’t want to see her hope die and know that I was the one who killed it. “This is something more interesting than that. Also, possibly more dangerous, if things go awry, but I don’t think that they will. We’re going to meet up with Alana. She is going to try to make a deal with your father to buy us back from him.”

 

     “You’re kidding, right?” Zoe cast me a sidelong smile, she suppressed a chuckle as she thought of the idiocy that I had just told her. After my expression didn’t change, and Connor didn’t put in his two cents about my joke being horrible, Zoe’s eyes got wide and she bit her lip. “You’re not kidding. Holy crap, Evan, she’s going to fall into the same hold that Jared fell into! Evan, this is _really_ bad! We have to do something, she cannot go through with this! She’s going to get herself hurt!”

 

     “Zoe, calm down.” Connor spoke soothingly as he traveled from my shoulder to Zoe’s shoulder. He laid a hand on her left shoulder as he sat down. Zoe pulled her hoodie closer around her, but I doubted that she cold in her red Converse and full-length jeans and hoodie. “Alana knows what she’s doing. Hansen freaked out just like this a little while ago, but I promise that no one is going to get hurt, and nothing bad is going to happen. Larry isn’t a monster who acts unprovoked.”

 

     “You’re right.” Zoe tried to breathe deeply. She didn’t want to believe that something bad would happen to her friend, is was just simpler to try and not stress about it. To be honest, I was worried about Alana and I didn’t want to see anything happen to her. “I just need to calm down and trust Alana. She’s smart, she won’t get herself hurt. She’s in control, there’s no reason to worry. Right.”

 

      It was almost like Zoe was just talking nonsense to herself to keep herself from falling apart. Zoe looked down at her hands as she laced her fingers together. I could only imagine how hard the last few hours had been on her. She had been imprisoned for longer than I had, and I hadn’t handled it perfectly. I reached out and touched her arm, letting her know that she wasn’t alone. Zoe looked up from her fingers and threw her body at me for another hug, catching me off-guard again.

 

     This time I hugged her back right away, partly because I needed the hug, and partly because she needed the hug. There was nothing left to say, other than we really needed each other right now. Whether we were dating had nothing to do with it, right now we both just needed another human being who would not only cry or laugh with us, but who would hug us when we were afraid and ready to give up hope that things were going to get better.

 

     “Everything’s going to be okay.” I whispered in the best soothing voice that I could muster. I could feel Zoe shaking in my arms, I had never seen her so defeated. I wanted to make Mr Murphy pay for what he’d done to her, he didn’t deserve to even know Zoe. “Nothing is going to happen to Alana, and nothing is going to happen to us. Alana’s plan is going to work out perfectly, and then everything is going to go back to normal.”

 

      “Look at me here, breaking down like some kind of child.” Zoe scoffed at herself, anger and self-hatred curling in her chest. She pulled away from me again, and I hated to see her go. She needed someone now more than ever, which meant that (naturally) she was going to cut out everyone right now more than ever. “I’m sorry, Evan. I’ll stop bothering you with that stuff. We have a job to do, and we need to do it right.”

 

     I wanted to tell Zoe that I didn’t mind, that it was okay to have feelings and to express them. We’d been through so much together in the past week, and everything was just being thrown upon us all at once. It was almost too much for me to handle at some points, so it was okay if she couldn’t always deal with the emotions and the fears that were plaguing her. But, before I could open my mouth and tell her all of this, the door of the Honda Civic opened again. Because the windows were tinted to bad that I couldn’t see anything out of them, Zoe and I had no idea that the door was about to open.

 

     “Hey, guys! I’m back!” Jared announced his presence loudly as he jumped on top of me in his haste to get into the car that Zoe and I were sitting in. Zoe’s expression darkened right away when she saw Jared, but I was almost happy to see Jared. It was good to know that he was alive. “Were you two having a make-out session in here? Because I am sorry to interrupt that, I would have loved to see that, believe me. But, really, Zoe, you can do so much better than Evan Hansen. How about Jared Kleinman?”

 

     And, just like that, any joy to see Jared again dissipated as I remembered how he was. Jared’s glasses were clean, and they looked so out of place with his wrinkled clothes and disheveled hair. Jared’s smile was bright, and his voice had the usual airiness to it, but something seemed just a tad bit off about his actions. He was still talking about his normal conversation topics, and he was teasing in a his usual ‘older-brother’ fashion.

 

     “I forgot just how much I hated you while you were gone.” Connor shook his head in awe at Jared, he found it amazing how someone so annoying could possibly still be alive. Jared quickly jumped off of me, and sat in the middle seat in the back of the Honda Civic, between Zoe and I. “Why couldn’t you have just stayed gone? I mean, life was simpler. There weren’t any annoying teenage boys to make dumb jokes all the time. I had peace and quiet. It was lovely.”

 

     “Don’t worry, I’ll give you and Evan some alone time later.” Jared brushed away Connor’s insults with a wave of his hand. Connor’s face flushed, and I could see a fight beginning. I quickly picked up Connor from Zoe’s shoulder and placed him on the headrest on the seat in front of me. “I can only guess how much fun you two had hanging out in a real prison last night. Tell me, Evan, you’re not still a virgin, are you?”

 

     “Did getting arrested somehow make you more perverted than before?” Zoe seemed to be actually asking a legitimate question. She frowned at Jared, and he threw a dirty look once he realized that she was being serious. “I mean, I cannot be the only one who noticed this. He’s just more annoying and perverted and so much more Jared-y, don’t you think?”

 

     I was about to fully agree with Zoe and her observation, when someone entered the car. It was a guard, and he got into the driver’s seat without saying a word. The windows were pretty much fully tinted so that no one could see in or out of them, so Jared, Zoe and I couldn’t tell where we were based on visual cues. The guard inserted a small USB drive into the self-driving part of the car, and the car started to move. The guard snapped his fingers and phase matter appeared right behind the headrests of the seats in front of Jared, Zoe, Connor and I.

 

     We all exchanged different looks as we tried to figure out what was going on. Jared gave me a look powered by adrenaline and mischief, he was somehow finding this funny and adventurous. Zoe looked almost afraid, but there was another emotion there that barred her from feeling fear, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Connor looked at the phase matter with a discontented glare as he beat his fists against it helplessly. I threw my friends a look of confusion, it didn’t make any sense for a guard not to drive themselves or not tell their prisoners where they were headed.

 

     “This doesn’t seem right.” The hair on the back of my neck was rising. Something about the way that the car was turning, and something about the way that we weren’t able to know where we were was off, too. Zoe shared the same idea, and she gave me a small nod. I guessed that she was trying to not speak to activate any listening devices, but it was too late. I had already spoken. “Why aren’t we being told anything? Why are we in the same car together? Something else is going on.”

 

     “No shit, Sherlock.” Jared sneered at me, his voice had more bite than usual. I didn’t pay him any mind, I but Connor seemed to think that Jared needed to be put in his place.

 

     “Lay off, Kleinman.” Connor replied to Jared with just as much acid as Jared had thrown at me. I didn’t bother to turn to either of them and encourage them, I just tried to calmly think of a way out of the situation that we had seemed to waltz right into. “At least Hansen isn’t an asshole, unlike you. And, bonus, Hansen also didn’t betray all of his friends! I think that that’s why I like him so much more than you!”

 

     “Fuck off, Connor.” Jared’s voice betrayed him, and I could hear the small crack in it. He still regretted his choices, and who could blame him? His guilt would likely come with him until the end of his life. “At least I didn’t end it all when shit got bad. Unlike you, who seemed to have fun not only getting high off his ass, but delighted in self-destructive behaviors until you eventually punched your own ticket.”

 

      The tension in the car came to a head with Jared’s last comment. My fingers curled into fists as Jared’s words repeated themselves in my head again and again. I couldn’t believe that he had said that, I wasn’t sure how Connor felt about people commenting on his death. It hadn’t even been a week yet since he’d died, it was defiantly too soon to comment on it. I searched for Connor’s eyes, but he refused to meet my eyes.

 

     “Okay, no.” The palm of my made contact with Jared’s cheek as I pushed him closer to Zoe. I tried not to hurt him with a sudden impact, I wasn’t out to get him. Yes, he would pay for his comment, but right now I was saving him from himself. I also pushed Connor farther away from Jared, until Connor was the only thing separating my hand from the phase matter between our driver and us. “This is _not_ going to happen. Not here, not now, not ever.”

 

     Connor mumbled something rude that I couldn’t make out, but I ignored him. His words, though I couldn’t make them out, sounded pointed and angry. None of us needed that right now, now was the time to come together as a team and not worry about little things that we were mad at each other about. I sighed as I took my hands away from the fighting human and Squip that both seemed Hell-bent on taking the other down.

 

     Jared smoothed down his hair as soon as my hand left my cheek, and he leaned back towards me. Zoe sent me a thankful look, she clearly hadn’t wanted to deal with Jared and Connor fighting this this very minute. There were more pressing and important things to be doing right now, and in fighting wasn’t going to make any of those important things go away. It was only going to make everything worse.

 

     “You two need to learn to get along, okay?” I sounded like a kindergarten teacher who was fed up with two of her students. I hated the way that this tone rose and fell, but I could see no other way to make Connor and Jared stop fighting with each other. “This is a very important moment for us right now. We just have to work together for just a little while longer. Then we can fall apart and fight and say everything we’ve ever wanted to say. Okay?”

 

     Connor and Jared both turned away from me, mumbling, with their arms over their chests. Zoe gave a half-hearted chuckle at the scene, it was like the two had never grown up from age six. Connor’s hair fell into his eyes and Jared’s glasses fell down his nose. Neither made any movement to correct what had happened to them, they seemed to just allow things to happen to their appearance, as if it didn’t bother them.

 

     I could feel the car come to a stop that was more sudden than I was used to. I wondered just how fast the car was travelling to have to slam on the breaks that hard. I was thrown forward a little, and Jared nearly hit the phase matter in front of his face, causing Connor and Zoe to giggle at his misfortune. He scoffed at them, rolling his eyes and moving his body back to where it had been before the car had slammed on the brakes.

 

     The phase matter that separated the guard and us dissipated with a snap of the guard’s fingers. All at once, the windows when from fully opaque to perfectly see-through, and I could see through them to look out at a sea of guards that were dressed just like the one that was sitting in the driver’s seat of the car that Jared, Zoe, Connor and I were still trapped in.

 

     “You can leave now.” The guard spoke quickly, as if speaking was some kind of disease that he didn’t want to catch. It wasn’t an invitation, it was an order. He eyed us suspiciously from the rearview mirror that was attached to the windshield of the Honda Civic. Tension filled up the car again, only this time it was more malicious than before.

 

     Zoe, tired of waiting around, opened her car door. The door swung open, and, after a moment of hesitation, Jared followed Zoe out. Connor jumped back to my shoulder and I opened up my own door and climbed out of the car. I was happy to be able to stretch my legs and walk around again, I was once again struck with how much I loved the outdoors. I had missed the sky, the clouds, the chemtrails.

 

     I took a few steps around the car, and I closed the door that I had climbed out of absent mindedly. I was looking out at the guards that were surrounding the warehouse that we had been brought to, there were less than what I had originally thought there would be. I now saw that there were only about a hundred guards, and most of them were in cars or talking in small groups. They weren’t pointing their guns at my friends or I, which was not only a welcome difference, but a reassuring change of pace.

 

     “Miss Murphy, Mr Kleinman and Mr Hansen!” Heather’s voice appeared almost out of nowhere, as I watched her run up to Jared, Zoe and I. We all cringed when we saw her, I guess that she was the escort for all of us. She walked right up to Zoe and hugged her as if they were old friends. It took all of Zoe’s willpower not to push Heather away immediately. “Oh, I am so happy to see you guys again! I have something for you guys, they are gifts!”

 

     As soon as Heather let go of Zoe, Zoe walked over to me and away from Heather. Jared followed Zoe’s lead, and Connor reappeared on my shoulder, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down Heather. How someone so small could be so scary was something that I wanted to know, Connor looked dangerous even despite his small size. Heather grinned as she took out multiple bracelet-looking things from a bag that she wore over her shoulder.

 

     Each of them looked like they could fit on the wrist of even the biggest people out there, but I saw that the metal was made to restrict. They looked like the smartest phase matter I’d ever seen, they had little wires and chips sticking out on the outside, giving the person who was holding them just a taste of what was no doubt inside of the metal that they were made of. They looked like little super computers, and I wondered if they were smarter than a Squip.

 

     _What are those?_ I asked Connor, hoping that he would give me some kind of insight into what those things were. I had a sneaking suspicion that they weren’t anything good, but I wanted to know for sure that they weren’t good before I jumped to conclusions. _They look like they’re some kind of futuristic handcuffs. And I think I see an RFID chip on them? God, these things could send signals to Mars if they wanted to._

_You’re not wrong about the contacting Mars thing._ Connor’s mental voice was distant, he was still analyzing whatever the things that Heathers was holding were. They had little LED lights on them that were flashing a perfect, brilliant while light that hurt my eyes. _Okay, these things are everything you speculated about. However, they are connected with some kind magnets that are used to pull the handcuffs together until the ‘key’ is used to take them off. These things are pretty deadly, too, if they malfunction. These aren’t toys._

“Okay, everyone, hold out your wrists!” Heather exclaimed. Her overly-cheery (and obviously fake) voice made my ears want to bleed and it was almost as bad as the white LED lights that hurt my eyes each time that they flashed. Jared, Zoe and I exchanged glances. I was the first to throw my wrists in Heather’s direction, grimacing as I moved. “Okay, Mr Hansen will be the first! So, just slip these on your wrists. Then put your hands behind your back and touch the cuffs together. Yeah, just like that!”

 

     The phase matter was just as smart I has theorized that it was. The cuffs became smaller so that they would fit snuggly around my wrists, without barring blood flow. I put my hands behind my back, and I felt my self-esteem go down. Was I really so much of a threat that the Feds thought it correct to do this? Or was this just a part of some de-humanizing stunt to make us all regret what we did?

 

     I followed Heather’s directions, and I felt the magnets that Connor was talking about before. The current, although not harmful, was very powerful. It was like holding the North and South sides of two magnets together as a kid. My shoulders already were calling out for me to take the damn cuffs off, I hoped that they’d come off before any kind of permanent damage was inflicted on my body.

 

      Zoe was the next to put on the cuffs. She looked just as unhappy as I felt. I saw that once the handcuffs were locked together, they were touching. There was no cool little laser that was connecting them, no little beam of light that would allow the wearer’s hands to move apart at least a few inches. The little white LED lights turned purple, and they stopped flashing. They were a constant color, which was somehow better than the flashing from before.

 

     I was impressed with Jared’s self-control level as to not make some kind of dirty joke about the handcuffs that Heather was using. I knew that Connor would have something else to say about Jared’s actions and what he was not saying. It was usually Jared’s style to think of some law that was being breached or some right that was in place to prevent something from happening. Once Jared was cuffed, and we were all utterly defenseless and helpless, Heather grinned even wider than before, which was thoroughly creepy.

 

     “How about you all follow me?” Heather asked in a sing-song voice. I decided that cringing at her voice would not only be rude, but a momentously bad decision that could have dire consequences. “Then we can start with this whole ‘negotiation’ thing that your dumb little friend thinks that she wants to do. She must have all of three braincells if she thinks that she’s going to win this battle.”

 

     Growls were uttered from Connor and Zoe, Jared stared daggers into the back of Heather’s head, and I really wanted to yell at her and tell her that she was wrong. Alana was the best friend ever. A good friend bails you out of prison, a better one is stuck with you in prison, but the best friend goes up against the powers of huge corporations one of the most unsettling men anyone has ever met. That was true friendship, and I was honored that Alana had chosen to be my friend.

 

      Heather led us through the throng of guards that were stationed around the warehouse. I could only think of how cliché this whole thing was, but I trusted that there was a reason that Alana had chosen to go through with such a cliché. I just had to trust in Alana right now and put a little bit of trust in the Feds, too, that they weren’t going to hurt me or my friends. I knew that if I gave them an inch, they’d take a mile, but I still felt like there needed to be some trust between us.

 

     The walk from the car to the warehouse that Alana was in was a short one. There were more cars and guards the closer I got to the warehouse, and I wondered just how Alana was holding up right now. If I were her, I would have run away due to the number of guards by now. I mean, they were all holding very large, very scary guns. I had already been shot once, I had no desire to take another bullet.

 

     The doors to the warehouse opened with a creak as Heather led us without any fear. I wondered if maybe she was just immune to the guards and their guns, or if she didn’t have enough sense to be afraid. I suspected that it was a little bit of both, Heather didn’t seem like she was all there. Once we were through the doors, I saw that Mr Murphy was standing with a large group of guards around him in a small tent that looked like the kind of tent that a congressman would have at a campaign rally.

 

      The warehouse was very large, about the size of two high school gyms, with old rafters that were made of wood. I could only imagine how unsteady this place was, it was nothing like the 3D printed metal houses that were build these days. The warehouse was perfectly open, and there was nothing else in here except for Mr Murphy’s tent and his few guards. There was a table in the tent with some papers on it, but other than that there wasn’t anything else in the warehouse.

 

     “You made it.” Mr Murphy leered with his arms open, and a malicious joy sparkled in his eyes. I wanted to take a lot of steps back and away from him, but it seemed that I was still a pawn. I had no choice but to advance farther into the den of danger. “I welcome you all here, I truly do. Heather, why don’t you come with us for the deliberations? And be sure to tell every single guard on the premises to leave right this very instant. Anyone who is still here in two minutes will be fired with a letter in their file.”

 

     “You heard the man!” Heather bellowed, and the guards that were standing around Mr Murphy all looked at each other for a moment before speed walking away from Mr Murphy as fast as they could. Heather pulled out an iPhone and pressed a few buttons, before squealing happily. “Okay, everyone now knows to get out as soon as possible. I think that should be gone in under those two minutes that you gave them.”

 

     “Good.” Mr Murphy told Heather, then turned to Zoe, Jared, Connor and I. His expression changed, and I could see Connor shift uncomfortably on my shoulder. “Now, _children,_ you have to understand that this is a very important deal. My guards are gone, and I’m at the mercy of this teenager. She doesn’t know what to expect, and I neither do I. So, if any one of you tries something, I hope you know that those handcuffs can shock you just like Squips, only bad enough to make your heart stop beating.”

 

     “You’re threatening us?” Zoe asked slowly, feeling out each syllable on her tongue to see if she liked the sound of it. Zoe sounded disappointed, but not surprised. I could only imagine how hard it must be to think that your own father is trying to kill you. Or, in Connor’s case, your father not only allowed you to die, but wanted you to die. “Do you understand that as soon as we’re all free, you’re going to have to answer to this in court, right?”

 

     “You’re so naïve, my dear daughter.” Mr Murphy chuckled darkly and shook his head, as if he were laughing at some kind of joke that no one else could hear or understand. “I will answer to no one; do you not understand it yet? My company has so much pull, I don’t have to worry about what I say or do, they’ll be no justice for me. While you bow to your judges and juries, I own them and I will destroy them.”

 

     Wind blew through the warehouse, making the papers on the tables inside of the tent that Mr Murphy had walked out of rustle and move a few inches. The rafters up above protested and groaned under the stress of the weather as they tried to stay standing with all of their might. The silence of the humans in the warehouse was what made everyone feel so much more uneasy after Mr Murphy had spoken.

 

     There was nothing left to do but meet up with Alana.

 

     There was nothing left to do other than move forward.

 

     In front of me, I could see something moving. I focused on the movement, and Alana stepped into a perfect shaft of light that was filtered through an old skylight in the warehouse. She looked so regal and important, yet I knew that she not the opposing queen, she was the brave hero, the brave knight, that was going to save her friends who were nothing but pawns. Alana had with her a suitcase that looked as if it had seen better days, but no Squip hovering over her shoulder.

 

     “I see that you’ve come on time.” Alana’s voice was a welcome noise. Jared and Zoe were so happy to Alana, and even Connor’s expression softened when he saw Alana. Alana was wearing a purple shirt and a black pencil skirt. Her outfit looked very much like Heather’s, and I could just imagine how angry Heather was on the inside right now. “It’s good to see you all. I see that you’ve upheld the part of our agreement about no guards. Thank you for that.”

 

     “You’re welcome, Miss Beck.” Mr Murphy replied, fake sugar coated his voice. Mr Murphy walked closer to Alana, and he dragged me along with him by grabbing me by my upper arm. Heather dragged Jared and Zoe up closer to Alana, and I could see Alana’s face change. She didn’t like to see her friends being dragged. “I just wanted to close this gap between us.”

 

     “That’s quite alright.” Alana lied. I doubted that Mr Murphy knew that she as lying. It was just the fact that I’d know Alana’s ‘truth-telling’ voice from so many late nights of digging through information to know when she was lying. “You have my friends here, and I have the documents that you wanted in this suitcase-” Alana patted the suitcase that was next to her leg, “-that I will give you as soon as you give me my friends back.”

 

     “That is our deal, is it not?” Mr Murphy smiled, but it looked more like he was baring his teeth at Alana. She didn’t stumble backwards or falter in her resolve. Part of me envied her confidence, the other part of me wondered if she had any rational fear at all. “See, but the only problem is, I can already tell that you’ve breached our deal. A very important part of our deal, mind you.”

 

    “What?” Alana sounded offended. She stepped forward, towards Mr Murphy and I. Mr Murphy still hadn’t let go of my arm, and his fingernails, though they were short, dug into my skin and left little crescents in my soft flesh. “I have done no such thing! This deal means a lot to me, I would never jeopardize it, ever!”

 

     In a horrible moment, Connor tapped me on my shoulder twice to see if I had noticed Alana’s lie. Ice grew in my stomach, and it spread up to my throat and my head. Alana was doing something against the rules, but what did that mean? Was she not really going to give the documents over? Was she going to try something risky that would get someone hurt? Or something risky that could get everyone hurt?

 

     “I’ll give you one more chance to tell the truth, Miss Beck.” Mr Murphy’s voice was a razor. His fingers dug deeper into my skin, but I was too worried about Alana to cry out for my own pain. This was bad, Mr Murphy had said that he answers to no man. He was capable of many things, and I feared the worse. All of my friends and I behind bars, Connor sent away to be experimented on. “Or else I _will_ take what is mine. Once I have done that, there will be no more questions to be asked.”

 

     “I told you, I’m _not_ doing anything I shouldn’t be.” Alana took a step forward, her voice ripped from her throat in a roar. Her eyes glowed with a determination that I hadn’t seen matched in the eyes of any other human being. “I’m doing everything that we agreed upon. Now, can we please just move on? You and I both know that the longer we stay here, the more suspicious it becomes.”

 

     “That’s the wrong answer, Miss Beck.” Mr Murphy looked so angry that he was calm. Fear ran through my veins as Mr Murphy threw me away from his body, and then pulled something from his coat. I couldn’t see what it was, but I heard a very loud noise before I hit the ground. I heard the sound of another person hitting the ground after I had landed, and the sound of Zoe screaming.

 

     I lifted my head as I saw Alana laying, unmoving, on the ground in front of me. I cried out, and I felt the magnets in my handcuffs deactivate. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but I didn’t care. I let them fall off of my wrists, and they landed right next to where I had fallen. My head was pounding, and I suspected that I had hurt it during my fall, but I had enough adrenaline in my blood to make me forget about my own problems.

 

     As soon as I got to Alana, I remembered everything that I had learned from my middle school First Aid class that everyone was required to take. Put pressure on the wound, and call 911. Wait for the authorities to arrive and make everything better. Because everything was going to be okay, right? Right? I saw now that not only was Alana’s chest rising and falling, but she was lying in a small pool of blood that was getting bigger and bigger each second.

 

     My hands fumbled as I tried to find the place where Alana had been shot. I finally saw the place where blood was making something that looked like a red flower on the front of her shirt. My hands pressed down on the wound, and my fingers were sticky with blood. The blood that was pooling around Alana just seemed to be collected more and more each second, which meant that that there was an exit wound, and there weren’t any bullets still in her body. I worried that the bullet might have broken while inside of her body, which would make things worse.

 

      Alana had been shot in what looked like right below her bottom left rib. I wasn’t sure what organs that bullet had went through, but I was confident enough to say that it at least didn’t go through her heart or her lungs, which were both pretty important organs. Alana was whimpering softly, I could only imagine the pain that she must be in. My bullet wound hadn’t been nearly this bad. More adrenaline soaked into my blood, and everything that wasn’t right in front of me became fuzzy.

 

     I could hear the sound of someone yelling into a cell phone to get the police to right here right now. I could also hear the sound of another body hitting the ground, and the growls of two people fighting each other. Zoe was somehow keeping it all together, she was searching under Alana’s body for something. Finally, she found what she was looking for. A small bullet, it had once been bronze, but now it was soaked through with blood. The metal had an evil shine to it in the dim light in the warehouse.

 

      Hope rose in my chest when I saw that the bullet hadn’t been broken, until I got a little close to it. I saw that there was only about half the bullet in Zoe’s hand, which meant that the other half could be anywhere in or out of Alana’s body. In my fear, my hands curled and I heard Alana whimper again from under me. I uncurled my hands and pressed down on the wound again, I didn’t want to hurt Alana any more than necessary.

 

    “I was broadcasting this whole thing.” Alana whispered, and Zoe and I both looked at her face in horror. She should not be talking! She should be asleep or something, that would make this easier on all of us! Alana coughed, and some blood coated her lips. More fear hit me as I figured out where at least part of the bullet still was. “It’s all over the Internet. There should be help arriving soon. Don’t worry about me, everything is going to be okay.”

 

     “Don’t talk anymore!” Zoe’s voice broke, she pressed down with her hands over mine. The squishy feeling of her hands coated in the same blood that we were both trying desperately to keep inside Alana was unsettling. Everything about this wasn’t okay, my breathing was getting faster and shallower with each second. “Just rest right now, that’s what I need you to do. Please, Alana.”

 

     “I’ll be okay, Zoe.” Alana tried to laugh, but she just coughed up more blood. Zoe’s hand moved away from Alana’s wound for a second to hold Alana’s hand. The blood from Zoe’s hand dripped and flowed down Alana’s hand and arm, until it finally ran out of energy and stopped halfway down her forearm. Zoe whispered something to Alana that I didn’t hear, and Alana didn’t respond.

 

     Alana closed her eyes and I heard the sound of human and Squip voices screaming orders from far away. I could hear Connor telling me to back up, but not take my hand away from Alana’s body. I didn’t think that I could take my hands away from Alana’s wound if I wanted to, the blood was beginning to stick to everything. I could feel it coating my legs and I saw that Zoe’s whole outfit had blood on it. Blood that should be inside Alana.

 

     I felt someone push my body away from Alana’s body, and they pressed their own glove-clad hands over Alana’s wound. I stumbled back from these people, knowing that my mother wasn’t one of the people who was on the ambulances at the hospital. I looked down at my hands, seeing that the blood on them was already starting to dry. The crimson would fade into a rust, and then it would fall away and nothing would be left, except for the hole in Alana’s body.

 

     Everything else happened in flashes. I could hear the sound of sirens, the push of paramedics making me back away from Alana. The sound of handcuffs being put around the writs of two people, the shouts of those two people – one of them now bloodied thanks to some quick thinking from Jared Kleinman – as they were shoved into the back of two different cop cars. The feeling of people touching my arm and leading from place to place.

 

     They speak to me in soft tones as they ask me for my side of the story. They ask in an even softer tone if I’m okay, as they give me a shock blanket and ask to have my ID so that they can contact my legal guardians. I wonder if Alana’s parents have been told about their daughter as the people talk to me in soft voices. They do the same things over and over again. All the while, they’re asking me if I’m okay.

 

    I tell them yes, because I can’t break apart just yet.

 

* * *

 

 

     “Evan Hansen.”

 

     I looked up to see who was speaking to me, and my tired eyes focused on Zoe. She was still in her bloodstained clothes, though now she had on Jared’s hoodie, which looked horribly out of place on her body. Her eyes were red and puffy, and there was blood under her fingernails and staining her jeans. It looked like she had just come back from battle, even her hair was disheveled. I stood up so that we could be at eye level, I doubted she wanted to look down and talk to me.

 

     But the anger in her voice told me that she wasn’t here to have a heart to heart, this was a meeting for a different reason. Connor shifted awkwardly on my shoulder, he had been silent since Alana had been. . . I just couldn’t accept it, and I choked back a sob. I met Zoe’s eyes, and I saw the fire of anger and pain in her eyes. I took a step forward, and it looked like someone had poured gasoline onto that fire in her eyes.

 

     Zoe had me cornered in the alley between the warehouse that Federal Agents were still running around in, trying to find the sniper (even though he hadn’t done anything wrong) to get his account of what had happened. I had been sitting on the ground, because I couldn’t find another place where I could just be alone to try and process everything that had happened. I hadn’t even cried yet, I was still in shock.

 

     “I hope you’re happy.” There was too much poison in Zoe’s voice for it to crack, it was perfectly and flawlessly deadly and hurtful. “I hope that this was everything you had ever wanted! We were all working together towards a goal that you _knew_ we’d never meet, and you didn’t care! You made us all join you, as if I could stand up to the judgement if I didn’t go and save my brother! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

 

     I took an involuntary step backwards. How could Zoe say such a horrible thing? I hadn’t known what was going to happen, how could I have known? I had just set out for answers, because that was what Connor deserved. It wasn’t about me, it was about Connor Murphy. But I knew that right now she needed blame a person who was living. I could hear Connor’s voice in my head telling me what to do and say, but I pushed him away.

 

     This was my battle, not his.

 

     “Zoe, I’m s-so sorry.” I bit my lip as I stuttered, trying to find the right words. With a shock, I realized that there weren’t any perfect words. I would just have to make something up, or ask Connor for advice. But this was my battle, no matter how feeble it may be. “I didn’t know that this was going to happen. I ne-never wanted this to happen! I never would have guessed that it would-would go this far!”

 

     “How hard is it to see the consequences of your actions?” Zoe walked around me in a circle, trying to attack me verbally from all sides at once. Angry and vengeful tears streamed down her face, washing away any blood or makeup that was left on her face since the last time she’d cried. “It isn’t that hard to see! Alana didn’t deserve this, but you didn’t care, did you? You just wanted answers! Well, here’s an answer for you: you fucked up and now _you’re_ to blame if Alana doesn’t make it through.”

 

     “Zoe. . .” I trailed off, unsure of what to say next. Zoe looked at me for a few seconds, she was giving me one last chance to speak my mind and be fully truthful with her. My throat closed, and I couldn’t find the words to express something that I didn’t even know I was trying to say. Words were failing me. There was nothing left to say.

 

     “Goodbye, Evan.” Zoe’s words cut like a knife. I wished that someone would stab me in the heart, maybe then the emotional pain that I was feeling could be cancelled out by the physical pain of being stabbed.

 

     Zoe turned on her heel and walked away from me, her footsteps were the only sound that my ears could pick up on. My heart broke more and more with each step she took, but I couldn’t do anything to bring her back, to tell her how sorry I was. I knew that she and Alana had gotten closer, and that watching your friend get shot right in front of you – and then being soaked in their blood as you blamed yourself for letting this happen – couldn’t be easy. I felt the same way, but now I was lost for words, lost for thought.

 

      The king was captured, as was his rook. The queen was safely tucked away at home, she would no doubt hear word of the king’s crimes in the coming hours. The prince and princess had fallen from their places of glory, they would no longer want to inherit the kingdom that the king had left behind. The pawn who had rebelled against the king was being treated for minor injuries, but he was going to be fine. The pawns of the game were all safe, and asleep in their homes without knowing the full scope of everything that was going on.

 

     But what about the knight? The hero of the story? The one who’s going to set us all free and dethrone the king once and for all?

 

     Well, she’s in the hospital because of the actions of one pawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really hard to write because Alana is one of my favorite characters in both the original DEH musical and my own story, along with other fan works. She's just the best, I don't care what other people say.  
> Which is why this was so tough for me to do.  
> I'm really sorry.


	15. Please Don't Disappear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan leaves the house for the first time in three days to go see Jared and Zoe again at the hospital, where Alana is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter shouldn't come as much of a surprise after the last chapter.  
> This chapter is nearly 20,000 words long, so yeah. It took me a whole week to fully write and edit and everything. However, the huge word count of this chapter brings my word average to over 9,000!   
> This chapter has a little blood warning on it, nothing nearly as bad as the last chapter. I just didn't want to catch anyone off-guard.  
> Enjoy!

_“Evan.”_

_My ears picked up the sound of Alana’s voice as I became astutely aware that I was alive. My lungs filled with oxygen for what felt like the first time in my life, but my head felt light and perfect, not even the trace of a headache had stuck around. I flexed my fingers as I pulled myself up from laying on the floor of. . . Wait, where was I? The floor was crude concrete, it wasn’t painted over or covered with anything at all, other than a fine layer of dirt and dust._

_“Evan!”_

_Alana was speaking to me, but I couldn’t seem to find her. We were back in the warehouse, but everything was darker than it was before. There were no shafts of light that were filtered through the skylights, everything was dark and impossibly cold. I turned around in a circle as I tried to find Alana, but she wasn’t anywhere that I could see._

_Until I heard the sound of a gunshot, a horrible sound that sent a horrible dash of déjà vu through my heart and mind. I could hear Alana scream and hit the ground, but I still couldn’t find her. Panic filled me, but my body didn’t freeze and my throat didn’t close. I tried to think of things to do to find Alana, but nothing came to mind. Without any other options, I just spoke._

_“Alana!” I screamed, my voice sounded so much smaller than what I needed right now. My throat hurt, and I could I tried to reach for my cast, but it was no longer on my arm. “Alana, where are you? Please help me find you, you’re hurt and you need help!”_

_I could hear Alana cry out again, and it sent another spike of adrenaline into my blood. My breathing was ragged, I knew what came next. Suddenly, Alana was standing in front of me, blood was dropping steadily form the bullet wound that had been inflicted on her body right under her last left rib. Alana looked angry and let down, as if I had failed her._

_Alana was dressed in a black hoodie, with her grey Converse and a pair of thoroughly worn jeans. Her eyes showed sadness, but the flame in them seemed to light up the entire warehouse around us. A thin line of blood was coming from her mouth, it seemed almost like an afterthought of an artist who had drawn her. She hands were curled protectively around her hips, she didn’t dare touch her wound._

_“Why did you let me get shot, Evan?” Alana asked, sounding heartbroken. I tried to take a step away from her, but she grabbed my arm and held me in place. Her eyes went from heartbroken to angry in a second, and the blood coming from her wound dripped faster than before. “Why didn’t you stop Mr Murphy? Why did you let this happen to me? Why didn’t you do something? Now I’m in the hospital, and it’s all your fault!”_

_Alana pushed me to the ground with her last words, and I landed on my butt on the ground. As I fell, I watched the warehouse melt away as I was suddenly inside of a church. Everything was white: the flowers, the people’s clothes, the pieces of fabric that were hanging like banners over each and every single window. The place looked eerie, but nothing like a normal church._

_The ceiling was high, but I felt dizzy when I looked above me. I looked out over the sea of men, women and children who were sitting in the rows and rows of pews in the church. They each sat patiently, though they seemed to not know what they were waiting for. Just like the church around me, they were perfectly quiet and their chests didn’t rise and fall as they sat there._

_Something pulled me towards the front of the church, where no one stood. There was a podium there (probably for a pastor) and an altar made of perfectly clear glass. Or was it crystal? The flowers that were arranged on top of would put any royal gala to shame, there were flowers that that I hadn’t ever seen before. I took the first step towards the front of the church, but my footsteps made no sound._

_I walked up the aisle, and each of the people were standing up and looking perfectly forwards as I walked past them. Everyone’s faces were blurry, I couldn’t tell if I knew any of the people that I was passing. I could only assume that I might go to school with some of them, but I couldn’t be sure. Finally, I got to the altar of the church. I turned around to face the people. I hated the way that everyone’s eyes followed me as I moved._

_I turned around again I saw that there was a perfectly white coffin in front of me now, sitting right upon the altar. I could hear the sound of all of the people breathing as one behind me, it was like a large hivemind and it really was creeping me out. I pressed my hands against the coffin, too afraid to open it up myself but not afraid of touching the thing. I sighed and I was about to tell Alana that I was sorry when I heard someone cry out from behind me._

_I jolted into action and turned around, ready to run in whatever direction that I had to. The church, as if it felt bad for me having to move so fast, allowed the banners that hung in front of the windows to move, ever so slightly. My eyes locked on three figures who now stood in front of me. Zoe, Jared and Connor were all standing before me, angry expressions were painted on their faces. They were all dressed in black, and it looked perfect on Connor but very out of place on Jared and Zoe. I wasn’t sure how to feel about Zoe and Jared dressed in all black, it was like seeing my friends go goth overnight._

_“I hope you’re happy, Evan!” Zoe yelled at me, and with each word the church shook and started to fall apart._

_“You got our friend killed!” Jared yelled next, and almost all of the white banners fell off from the ceiling. I took a step away from them, raising my arm in a defensive pose._

_“You never got me the answers you promised me!” Connor’s voice was the most hurt, the deadliest. The rest of the church shook apart, and all of the people with their blurry faces were destroyed by the ceiling crashing down onto them. I cried out as I watched them disappear, no one else had to get hurt!_

_“Why are you doing this?” I cried, my breathing was ragged as I hugged myself in an effort to calm myself down. Zoe, Jared and Connor took a step towards me, they stalked over towards me like I was their prey. Somehow, we hadn’t had the ceiling rain down on us. I wasn’t sure how, there had to be ceiling over us, right? “I didn’t mean to do the things I did! I only wanted to make things right!”_

_“Are you sure that you just wanted to make things better?” Alana’s voice came to me, and I felt hands on my shoulders. I stopped breathing when I saw her next to me, she was dressed like a body at an old Victorian era funeral. A small, white veil was obscuring part of her face and white gloves were being worn over her hands. She gave me a creepy smile, and a small line of blood dripped down between her lips again. “Or were you just trying to ruin all of the things we’ve worked so hard to build?”_

_I could hear the sound of my friends walking towards me. I tried to move out of Alana’s grasp, but she only spun me around and took ahold of my hands. She laced her fingers in mine, and leaned in close and smiled at me while more blood dripped down from the sides of her mouth. Then, with force I had never seen Alana exhume for in any physical contest, she pushed me backwards and removed her fingers from mine. She grinned evilly at me as I fell, until I felt my back hit the ground._

_Above me, my friends all stood on at the altar, all of them dressed in black to honor Alana’s death. They looked like angels of death, all they were missing were torn and broken wings. Jared and Zoe stood on Alana’s left side, and Connor was alone to Alana’s right. Connor took a step forward towards me and I tried to crawl away from him. Connor grabbed the front of my shirt and lifted me up in the air, and I wondered how someone so skinny could have so much muscle mass._

_“I think that I speak for all of us when I say that if you had never reached out to us, none of this would have happened.” Connor’s voice cut my heart like a knife, and my mouth hung open in shock. A bright fire burned in Connor’s eyes, and when I looked away from his eyes, I noticed that we were all standing in a graveyard. “Now, it’s time to undo what you’ve done.”_

_“Connor what-” I was cut off by Connor throwing me onto the ground. The fall was quick, and when I landed the air was knocked right out of my lungs. I closed my eyes as I fell, but I opened them once I found that the ground was perfectly placed under my back. I looked up to see Zoe, Jared and Connor looking over me. “What are you doing? How are you going to undo my actions?”_

_Hysterics were about to kick in, this was creepy and no one was answering my question of what was going on. I clenched my fists in fear, and I searched hopelessly for any kind of noise in the air, but I was only met with the faint call of nothingness that seemed to ebb and flow with my heartbeat. Connor’s eyes were burning like holy fire, while Zoe and Jared looked almost happy to see me in a grave._

_“Goodbye, Evan.” Zoe gave me a small wave, before her eyes glinted red and her smile turned vicious. I felt fear take root in my heart, what did she mean when she said ‘goodbye’? What was going to happen to me? Was this the end? “It’ll be nice to see you get what you deserve. Say hello to Alana for me.”_

_Before I could ask what Zoe meant, she threw a fistful of dirt onto my chest. Jared and Conner also threw some dirt down on my body, and I was reminded that this was commonplace at funerals. Suddenly, I was drowning in the Earth, lungs were filling with dirt. I couldn’t feel my limbs, everything was both numb and searing with an unimaginable pain._

_I felt myself fall once again, but I didn’t open my eyes to see where I was falling to this time. I had hoped that the torture was going to end with burying me alive, but I was wrong. There was something more for me now, something else that my friends would use against me to make me pay for my sins. I felt like I was falling from the tree again, emptiness was tugging at my soul and it threatened to weaken me to nothing._

_I opened my eyes and I saw that I was free falling. The wind was rushing all around me, and the sound of nothingness was killed for a second as the whooshing of the wind filled my ears. I was standing up, somehow, and I could see the ground that was quickly rushing to meet my feet. I knew that it would hurt a lot once my feet hit the ground, but I didn’t care. I deserved this, I had taken someone out of this world by my own actions._

_I could survive a little bit of pain. Okay, a lot of pain._

_The ground was coming up close to me, and I pulled up my feet in a second of fear. But, it was no use because the ground hit the bottoms of my feet the next second without warning. My ankles took the brunt of the force, and I remembered how it had felt when I had sprained my ankle back in fourth grade, only this was a pain more acute and deadly than anything I’d felt. Or maybe the memory of that pain had just been dulled by time, I couldn’t tell which one was true._

_I was nearly crippled by the pain, and I fell to my hands and knees. I gasped for breath for a second as I arched my back and I tried to calm myself down and stop my heart from beating so fast. I sound of nothingness was replaced by the sound of a brutal and deadly wind, and I wasn’t sure which sound was better. I didn’t have any intention of picking myself back up, I wanted to just lay on the ground and wait to die. There was nothing left for me here._

_All at once, the wind that sounded around me was pushing at my clothes and body. My hair was being pulled by the high winds, and I felt like I was in a hurricane, and all I wanted right now was to get to the eye of the hurricane so that the wind would stop. The eye of the hurricane was supposed to be calm, right? Yeah, the eye of the hurricane felt really nice right now. But, as I heard a voice, I knew that the eye of the hurricane was a million kilometers away._

_“Evan. . .” I heard Alana’s voice, and I frantically searched for her without moving my body too much. I finally had a burst of strength and I picked up myself up and I strained my ears and I urged myself to find out where Alana was. She could be hurt again, or worse. I couldn’t heart her talk again, and I was ready to run in any direction as fast as I could._

_“Alana!” I screamed, my throat was raw and I could taste blood in the back of my throat. Was my throat bleeding? I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and panic flushed my cheeks. Was I choking on my own blood? I pushed the thought away as I called out again for Alana. “Alana, where are you? It’s me, Evan! I’m here to help you!”_

_“Help me?” Alana was suddenly right next to me, and I was so startled that I jumped a foot away from her. A small smile spread across my face as I realized that she was okay, I hadn’t failed yet. She stood in front of me in the same black dress that she had been wearing before, only now she was sans veil and gloves. “Help me like you tried to help me before, when you just covered your hands in my blood? How can such a pitiful creature as yourself, Evan Hansen, help me?”_

_I was at a loss for words, but that didn’t matter. Alana didn’t seem to care, she just broke down in front of me. Tears streamed from her face as she took a dangerous step towards me, murder was spelled out in every movement of her muscles. I took a step away from her, but she grabbed my arm and her fingernails cut perfect crescent moons into my flesh, allowing blood to pour from my arm._

_“You did this!” Alana cried, blood streaming from her mouth again. I wanted to gag at the sheer amount of blood around me, it was all too much. I tried to pull myself away from her, feeling tears pricking the back of my eyes as I watched her cry. I had never wanted this, why couldn’t Alana just be angry and not let down? “You got me shot, Evan! And I might die! I didn’t ask for this, and now I might not survive this! How dare you put someone else’s life above my own?”_

_Without warning, Alana kicked her leg out to hit the back of my knees and make me fall. I stumbled and reached for her, and my hands found hers. I looked up at Alana with eyes wide with fear. Déjà vu struck me again, and I could imagine the images of the gloves on her hands and the black veil covering her face. But she had shed the things that allowed fake beauty to exist, even after death. What stood before me was just Alana Beck, without any of the things that promoted fake beauty._

_“I can forgive you, but I don’t think that your friends can.” Alana whispered, and I saw that the blood running down from her mouth was an even darker red than what he blood had looked like when it had covered my hands. I was too struck with fear, remorse and disgust to pull myself away from Alana. “You just wanted answers, you didn’t think of the price of these answers. You didn’t mean to do what you did, you’re just a scared kid. A scared kid who can’t even face his own demons.”_

_My throat felt as though it was torn to shreds. My will to tell Alana off was nonexistent. All I wanted to do was have someone tell me that everything was going to be okay. I choked back a sob (which was more painful than hurting my ankles before) and I Alana’s grip on my fingers lessen. I looked into her eyes, seeing the forgiveness, but failing to find the compassion that they usually glowed with._

_Without another word, Alana flung me into a sea of nothingness._

* * *

 

“Alana.”

 

     Her name was on lips as I threw myself into conciseness. I could remember the blood, the feeling of falling, her words about forgiveness. I sat up in my bed and hugged my knees to my chest as I tried in vain not to cry. It had been three days since Alana was shot, and I was still waking up from nightmares. I tried to cry as quietly as possible, there was no reason to wake my mom.

 

     I balled my hands into fists and tried to wipe away my tears, but nothing was working to calm myself down. I was shaking, and I held my hands in front of my face and I willed myself to stop shaking, to stop freaking out. My room was bathed in darkness, but there was enough light to see enough of my room. I had been spending most of my time in my bedroom lately, it was my only escape from the reporters who were searching for a story.

 

     “Hansen?”

 

     I stopped moving when I heard Connor’s voice. I looked over my knees, and I saw him standing and looking up at me with worry in his eyes. He bit his lip, he wasn’t sure how to react to comfort me and try to make me feel better. Usually I could deal with things myself, but nightmares every night? Not being able to eat, or talk to people? Refusing to leave the house or have anyone touch me? This was something beyond what Connor or I could handle, this was worse than any depression or anxiety symptom we had suffered through before.

 

     “Nightmares again?” Connor asked awkwardly, teleporting to my knees. I nodded, a new wave of sobs was coming on. I knew that Connor hated it when people cried, which only made me feel worse, but I couldn’t stop. Connor’s voice was soft, but it sounded strained. “Do you remember it? Was Alana there?”

 

     “I think so.” I tried to remember what had happened, but I could just remember flashes. A white church, my friends all dressed in black. An altar, the sound of wind blowing fiercely in my ears. The harder I tried to remember something concrete, the more that everything slipped away from me. “I don’t really remember much. God, why am I still having nightmares? It’s been three days, why can’t it all just be over by now?”

 

     “Because healing takes time.” Connor sat down on my right knee and stared into space, trying to find the words to calm me down. He had given me so many speeches over the last three days that it felt like I had already heard it all. There was nothing left to say, and none of the words he could give me would help me anyways. “You’re only human, Evan. You’re pushing yourself too hard. You need to take some time to cry and break down so you can get better later.”

 

     “I just want to be better now.” I bit my bottom lip, tasting more blood as I was reminded that I had bitten it almost every single time I had remembered Alana. She was still alive, but I hadn’t worked up the courage to go and see her in the hospital. “I just want to go see Alana and not worry about how I’ll feel. I’m tired of these emotions, I wish someone would just rip out my heart.”

 

     “That won’t work, Hansen.” Connor shook his head, and he sent me an apologetic look. “Human hearts will always grow back, even if you aren’t technically human.”

 

     “That was really emo.” I laughed, feeling my pain lessen just a little bit as Connor sent threw me a glare. I wiped away at my tears, I hated the way that they felt on my skin. I hated knowing that they were mine, shed out of weakness. “I have to heal myself, Connor, I can’t live like this any longer.”

 

     “Hansen, it’s been _three days.”_ Connor rolled his eyes and shook his head slowly. “You haven’t ‘lived like this’ long enough to decide that you want to go out and commit suicide or anything. Trust me, it’ll get better. This is just temporary. Eventually, the nightmares will go away. It’s going to take some time, but it’ll happen. I promise. Healing is a process, and you’re just in the beginning stages right now.”

 

     “What if it doesn’t get better?” I ran a hand through my hair. My agonizing grief had given way to agonizing anxiety, and it was crushing me as I tried to think my way out of my current life choices. Trying to breathe had become a battle, but I was slowly winning. “What if things only get worse? What if I don’t-”

 

     “Don’t worry about it, because it won’t happen.” Connor reassured me in a firm voice. His eyes met mine, and peace filled me. I wasn’t sure if Connor was just tampering with my emotions – because I knew that Squips could do that – but I was glad for it either way. I needed peace and calm right now, more than I needed anything else. “Do you think you can fall back asleep?”

 

     I sighed and ran my hand through my hair again. I took second to think about Connor’s question, thinking about the different nightmares that I’d had over the past three days. Drowning, being buried alive, falling from immense heights were just a few of the things that I could remember. I had seen everyone who I had every known and loved being hurt again and again, it was like my subconscious was trying to make me pay.

 

     So, did I want to sleep? No. Did I realize that I had to? Yes.

 

     “What time is it?” I asked, I had taken my alarm clock off of my night table. I no longer liked the harsh, red glow of the numbers, they gave me a headache when I looked at them too long. “I suppose that if it’s pretty late, I should sleep. I’m seeing Zoe and Jared for the first time in three days tomorrow, so I have to worry about that. I’m not sure if sleep is the best option for me.”

 

     “It’s a little after four in the morning right now.” Connor reported back to me, his voice sounded worried. It was as if he was worried that I’d go back to sleep and wake up from another nightmare. That had happened all too often, it seemed. “Are you going to stay up?”

 

     “I should sleep.” I threw my head back onto my pillow, and Connor was tossed into the air. He growled quietly as he teleported onto my night table. He gave me a disgruntled look as I brushed nonexistent dust from his body. “I haven’t gotten the right amount of sleep that humans need in a few nights. Nothing is right with my mental state right now, I need some sleep before I see anyone. Can you shut off my dreams?”

 

     “I’ve never tried that before.” Connor thought about it for a second. Normally, he would have looked it up, but I was trying to keep Connor off of the Internet if at all possible. SquipTech was after him, and so was every government agency in the world. The idea of a mentally AI with feelings and thoughts inside of the head of a teenage boy who also wasn’t mentally stable worried many government leaders. “But I think it might work.”

 

     “Well, let’s hope you can get it to work.” I yawned, not sleeping well was beginning to catch up to me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the image of my hands covered in Alana’s blood. It didn’t faze me anymore, I was used to the blood. “Because I need to get some good, dreamless sleep so I can be ready to take on the day tomorrow. Or, well, in a few hours.”

 

     “Night, Hansen.” Connor spoke but I couldn’t see him as I slipped into a sleep that didn’t feel like it was fully natural. I realized that Connor must have figured out how to put me to sleep and make my sleep dreamless already. He was a pretty good Squip, considering he had been living as a human for seventeen years, and had only become a real Squip for a little over a week now.

 

     A comforting darkness dragged me into a dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m not ready for this.”

 

     Connor face palmed and sighed heavily as he sat on my shoulder. I had gotten only three and a half hours of sleep, which had been good for me but had drained Connor because he was trying to keep me from dreaming, which was harder than I had thought it would be. After waking me up, Connor had explained that he didn’t want to deal with any of my crap today. So, naturally, Connor had been trying to convince me to go outside and face the horde of reporters that were standing outside of my house.

 

    You’d think that after three days, the world would stop caring about SquipTech and their unethical business practices. Apparently, that wasn’t true, because new information was coming out every day and people were beginning to care more and more. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to drive them away. Reporters were willing to do almost anything to get a shot of Connor, who was the topic of many, many conversations that took place behind closed doors, led by important people in locked rooms.

 

    Which meant that there would be a very large bonus given to the first person who could get not only visual documentation of Connor, but anyone who could make a duplicate of him would be given double – or, in some cases, triple – that bonus. Reporters and tech junkies rubbed elbows outside my house as they all competed for a large paycheck that they were all dead set on retrieving.

 

     The local police force was trying to guard my house, but it was to no avail. My mom was considering moving us to a hotel for a few days, but she wasn’t fully ready to forgive me yet. I had lied to her, and then not told her the truth when she asked about it. And I had brought a whole mob of strange people who both loved and hated Squips to her doorstep along with world leaders who were worried about my mental state. She was picking up any extra shifts that she could, she tried not to come home.

 

     I had spent most of the last three days alone, trying to pick up the pieces of my now damaged life with the help of Connor. I stood in my kitchen, I could hear the sound of the reporters outside of the door. They were yelling at each other, again, about who was going to get the better shot of the so-called ‘damaged AI’. I wasn’t sure how Connor’s mental state was right now, since everyone seemed to call him anything but his name.

 

     “I really don’t want to leave.” I whispered, and my face paled as fear clawed at my soul. I kicked my shoes against the door quietly, but the reporters couldn’t hear the sound over the sea of their own yells. “I’m not sure that I can face these reporters, or techies or whatever. I _really_ know I can’t face Zoe or Jared. Or Alana, when she wakes up.”

 

     “Hansen, you can do this.” Connor’s voice was strained, but optimistic. He was at his wit’s end, he needed some time to sit down and process. The cops had taken down the 5G for his protection, and now Connor was operating at just 2G, which was a large difference for him. “You _have_ to do this. I’ll be safe, no one is going to hurt me. Then you just have to go and walk to the cop car that’s going to drive you to the hospital. It really isn’t that bad.”

 

     “But what if something happens?” I turned my head so I could look Connor in the eyes, and the look he gave me told me that he felt the same fear for his own well-being too. I had found a little box on the Dark Web that would keep a Squip safe while inside of the box, no one would be able to mess with it. It was a government prototype, and it was highly illegal to have one. It was perfect. “What if the box doesn’t work and some tries to hurt you?”

 

     “Worry about yourself, Hansen.” Connor shook his head, trying to clear the thought of getting himself hurt again. We weren’t fully sure what the governments of the world would do if they got their hands on him, but we were both sure that it wasn’t anything good. “I’ll be fine. This is government tech were talking about, they don’t build it to fail or stop working. Yes, it is a prototype, but have a little faith in the Feds.”

 

     I laughed awkwardly at Connor’s last statement as I ran a hand through my hair. I sighed and shrugged my backpack off of my shoulders and set it down on the kitchen table. I opened up the main pocket and I pulled out the small cube that I had bought from the Dark Web. I had no idea that Tor could do so much for me, but I was happy. The cube had a line of small green LED lights that were dark, but they would light up once the Squip was inside. Connor bit his lip and he teleported near the cube, and looked at me once last time.

 

     “I’ll see you on the other side, Hansen.” Connor gave me a mock salute and a half-smile. I felt some of the fear in my chest leave me, there was no reason to be worried about Connor any longer. He disappeared, and I felt an invisible weight leave the back of my head. The little green LED lights began to glow and get brighter and dimmer in time with my breathing. I wasn’t sure if that was by design or not, but I liked it.

 

     I set the cube back into my backpack, and I made sure that it was nestled between some of my t-shirts. I didn’t know if the cube was fragile, so I was sure to insulate where it would be, in case something happened to it. I was sure to grab a lot of shirts, so that nothing could possibly happen to it. I didn’t want to hurt the tech that I had paid more than two hundred dollars for, or hurt Connor in the process of being out two hundred dollars.

 

     Sighing one last time, I closed my backpack and readied myself to walk out of the door. I had never felt this anxious to leave the house, and I tried to think of times that I had felt like this before. This was a very, very real fear that struck me right down to my bones. Nothing about this was okay or normal, I was going to go and face an army of tech junkies and people who just wanted a story.

 

     People who would be willing to do almost anything for a story. Already there had been three arrests outside of my house because people had gotten rowdy and angry at each other. A couple of small fights had broken out, but for the most part there was just a tension in the air. Everyone could sense it, and the tech junkies and reports had taken to turning off their Squips at certain times during the day. News of the ‘damaged AI’ had them paranoid, it seemed.

 

     I placed my hand on the doorknob and I pushed down my fear. I had already called the police officer who was in charge of taking care of me. It was like I had a second mother for as long as he was around. It was nice to know that I had at least on ally. I had my keys and my phone and my phone charger tucked under my shirts in my bag, and I just kept thinking about that as I opened my back door as much as I dared.

 

     The sound of yelling and the clicking of camera shutters was the only thing that I could hear. I looked over the sea of reporters and tech junkies, trying to remember Connor’s words of encouragement. There had to be more than two hundred people standing outside of my house, complete with news cars and people who had brought their dog because they knew that I liked dogs. All of the area around my block was filled with people, and I felt bad for my neighbors, their flower beds had been all but trampled.

 

      Ignoring the sea of people wasn’t going to be easy, but at least the task that I had to carry out was simple. I could see the fully black cop car that I was supposed to get into in front of my house. I had to just get from point A (my house) to point B (the cop car that would take me to go see Jared, Zoe and Alana) without tripping, falling, stumbling or talking to any of the press. Simple enough, right?

 

     Wrong.

 

     I nearly tripped right away, the sound of the reporters was throwing me off. Their voices moved to a crescendo, and then suddenly got quieter just for a second while their eyes dashed down to their notepads to scribble down some words about how I was reacting. Drones flew around my head, but they never crossed onto my property, as that would be breaking the law. The questions never stopped, but I could only pick a few of them out in the fray.

 

    “Evan Hansen, what do you think of the laws about Squips?” One reporter yelled, jumping up and down as her glasses fell down her face.

 

     “What kind of relationship did you have with the Murphy family before Connor Murphy’s death?” A tech junkie yelled out, holding his hand up above his head lazily.

 

     “How is Connor adjusting to this new life? Does he go by his new name, Franta all of the time?” A tall man in a fedora asked as he leaned as close to me as he dared to.

 

     “Can you tell Connor to come out and say hi? We all really want to see him!” A girl in a very short skirt cheered Connor’s name, she seemed elated to see me.

 

    I took the first step off of my own property and into the street, the cop car was less than a meter away from me. Happiness filled my chest, just as a new throng of tech junkies tried to find Connor as their Squips glared at me. Everyone’s eyes were studying me as they took pictures and made notes in scribbled hand writing. I saw that some people were looking at me with a look of admiration, but most glared at me with a look that made me feel like I was a prize to be won. And not in a good way.

 

     It was all too much. I quickly scrambled away from the reporters towards the cop car. The cop who was going to drive me to the hospital, a burly man in his forties who looked like he wanted to kill every single person and Squip who was standing in his way. I hesitated for a second before getting into the car, but he grunted loudly and I quickly pulled on the car’s handle. He gave me an angry look, as if I had wanted any of this to happen.

 

    “Get in.” He grunted as he jerked his head to the cop car. I opened up the back driver’s side door and quickly jumped in before any reporters could say anything to me. Connor had stressed to me before about how important it was that I _not_ say a single word to the press, or else it would be used against me and, by extension, him. Nothing was simple anymore, even my words had become weapons of my own undoing.

 

     I buckled my seatbelt as I tried to calm myself down in the back seat of the cop car. The reporters, sensing that the cop car I was in was going to move, gave the car a wide berth. They looked displeased that I hadn’t answered their questions, but I wasn’t sure what they thought I was going to do. Did they think that I was going to get myself in more trouble just to entertain the idea of my fifteen minutes of fame? Did they really believe that I’d let my friends down? What kind of person did the world think I was?

 

     Loneliness and anger appeared in my soul, making me feel like I was different than every other person in the world. Well, to be fair, I almost always feel like that, but this was different. Not much different, but different. I stifled and sigh and bit my lip, but not as hard as before. The flesh on my lips was still trying to close up from all of the abuse that they had suffered lately. I rest my right hand on my cast, trying to pull myself into the real world again.

 

     “You okay, kid?” The cop asked in a grunt from the front seat, and my eyes shot up to him. I could see myself in the rearview mirror, and I looked ashen and pale. I touched my face in wonder, I had no idea that stress and fear had done so much to me on the outside. On the inside, my heart and soul were being crushed under the weight of the world. “You don’t look so good. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

 

     “Yes.” My answer came out as more of a question, but I couldn’t get my vocal chords to agree with me enough to allow me to say anything more. Fear was threatening to take me down again. I traced the place where Connor’s name should have been on my cast, I had memorized where the scrawl in black Sharpie should have been. I sighed lightly, I was a mess.

 

     The rest of the ride was silent. I pulled my knees to my chest and I didn’t look at the reporters who ran after the cop car in search of answers. They eventually gave up and left me alone, which was all I had ever wanted. I tried to make myself as small as possible as I thought about how Zoe and Jared would react when I saw them. It wasn’t safe yet to take Connor out of my backpack and speak to him, so I was utterly alone.

 

     “We’re here.” The cop turned around to look at me. He looked old enough to have a kid my age, and he looked at me like I was his son. Something inside me, something long lost and broken, was mended as he looked at me. I fumbled with my seatbelt, I didn’t want to stay here any longer. This was all just too much. “Take care of yourself, kid. Why don’t you call me when you want me to pick you up?”

 

     I nodded at his words and I thanked him as I got out of the cop car. There were no reporters outside of the hospital, I wasn’t sure why they hadn’t shown up yet. Maybe out of respect, or maybe they just hadn’t heard yet that I was here with Connor. I instantly wished that I had brought a hoodie, I wanted nothing more than to pull some soft cotton fabric up and over my head and hide away from the world.

 

     Inside, the hospital was perfectly white. The tiles that made up the floor were gleaming, and the tables and chairs that were dotted around the front entryway of the hospital were pristine, it looked like no one had ever sat in them. The plants that were growing happily in their pots were genetically engineered plants that helped to calm down humans, their leaves, stems and flowers glowed a pristine white as they soaked up light from the florescent lights above. The people were the only thing that brought the place color with their skin, their hair, their clothes.

 

     The entry room had a low ceiling, but it was still elegant. There weren’t very many people walking around the place, it seemed like it was kind of a slow day, which made me wonder why my mom was always so swamped with work and things to do while she was here. I also wondered if she was here right now, there was a chance that I might run into her. I hoped not, I really didn’t want that to happen right now. I was under enough stress as it was.

 

     “Hello, there!” A cheery voice called me back into the real world, and a pretty nurse called out to me. She was wearing a light purple outfit, and her black eyes and soft facial features gave her a perfect look of happiness and beauty. She held a clipboard close to her chest as she walked over to me as quickly as she could. “Can I help you, young man? Are you looking for someone?”

 

     “Yes, I’m look-looking for my friend, Alana Beck?” My voice made my words come out as a question. The nurse just smiled at me, her teeth were the perfect color and she seemed almost too nice and perfect. Her Squip was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered why that was. “I’m not sure where she is, but I was told that she was here somewhere.”

 

     “You must be Evan Hansen, then.” The nurse spoke my name with a sort of awe, as if my name now meant something to people. I watched as other people – both hospital staff and people visiting friends and loved ones in the hospital – looked over at me. My face became warmer, and I cursed myself for coming here. “I never thought I’d _ever_ meet Heidi’s son, and much less under these circumstances. How are you holding up?”

 

     “I’m doing just fine.” I called upon my old skills in lying to try to convince the nurse that I was doing okay. In all reality, I wasn’t doing well at all and I needed a nap and some time to just sit down and process everything that had happened lately. The headache pounding in my temples wasn’t helping. “I just need to see my friend, please.”

 

     “I can take you to Miss Beck.” The nurse nodded, still in awe of my presence. I wished that she wouldn’t act like that, but I wasn’t going to say something. I didn’t want to be rude, but I couldn’t understand why everyone was looking at me like I was a celebrity, someone to be listened to and feared. I hadn’t done anything important, I had just made a lot of bad choices that had ended up causing one of my friends to be very injured.

 

     The nurse and I walked up a long hallway, until we got to the end and climbed a flight of stairs. I wondered why we didn’t take an elevator, but I didn’t want to ask and open up the door of conversation. I replayed different scenarios again and again in my head, thinking about all of things that Zoe might yell at me, all of the looks of disappointment that Jared would throw my way.

 

    Nothing would ever be the same, and I really wasn’t ready for that. I just wanted to go back to being a friendless loser, if it meant that everyone would be happy and not in the hospital for gunshot wounds.

 

     The nurse stopped walking, and I nearly ran right into her. I stopped at the last second, remembering that I still had an ability to stop myself from preforming certain actions. Connor had stopped me from doing stupid things lately, like tripping and falling, so being without him was kind of a learning curve that was a tad bit strange to get used to. The nurse gestured to a door to our left, and I saw that it was nothing special. The number on the door was 884.

 

     “Miss Beck is in this room.” The nurse motioned to a door to her left, the door was closed. I wasn’t sure if Jared or Zoe was here already, but I knew that we were all going to say hello to Alana today. I knew nothing about her state, I could only hope that she was awake and on her way to a quick and painless recovery. “If you need anything, Mr Hansen, please just tell me.”

 

    I hesitated, and then gave the nurse a nod. She smiled at me and then walked away, her footsteps were the only sound in the hallway. I hovered in front of the door for a few seconds. I finally placed my hand on the door, not sure if I should open the door with or without Connor out and ready to see Alana. I knew that he was just as anxious to see her, but I didn’t want to show him to the world without first walking through the door to see Alana.

 

     Without a second thought, I turned the doorknob and I threw my weight onto the door and I stepped my first foot into the room. I was met first with the smell of the room, it smelled like someone had poured a whole bottle of rubbing alcohol on the ground, along with some blood and an IV for good measure. It smelled so much like a hospital that it made me want to gag.

 

     The décor of the room was simplistic, with a few chairs – the kind you’d find in a convention hall of a motivational speaker – were scattered around the room. The wall that I was facing had a medium sized window on it, with the blinds drawn so as to not let in any sunlight. It made everything in the room, which was white, not glow as much as the rest of the hospital. The room was pretty good sized, with a very small table and some more chairs gathered in the corner to my right.

 

     “Evan?” My throat closed up as I heard my name be spoken by a voice I didn’t recognize. I turned around to see a woman who looked to be in her forties, with long, black hair that cascaded down her back in perfectly curly locks. Her eyes were kind, and her skin was the same dark shade of Alana’s skin. I could see that she and Alana had the same eyes, the same nose.

 

    “Evan!” I heard another voice cry, and I looked to my right to see Jared. He seemed shocked to see me, and I was shocked to see him, too. He had a small line of stiches running from left to right on his left cheek right under his eye. His left eye was also black, but it looked like it was in the last stages of healing already. His knuckles were bandaged with Band Aids, and I could only guess that Ella had put them on Jared’s hands, but his other wounds looked professionally dressed.

 

     Jared immediately bounded over to me, wrapping his arms around me in a moment of great confusion for me. I wasn’t sure why Jared was being so nice, but it felt nice to be hugged by another human being. I returned his gesture, feeling better already. I was worried about his injuries, but they looked like they were badges, proof that he wasn’t going to work for Mr Murphy again.

 

    “How have you been?” Jared pulled away from me and held me by my shoulders. He smiled at me, he was just so glad to have me in one place, where he could not only look at me but talk to me without any fear of saying something wrong. “Did you talk to the press? Is Connor okay? Where _is_ Connor? Did something happen to him?”

 

     “Everything’s fine, and I haven’t spoken to the press.” I couldn’t help but smile, I was so happy to have someone whom I cared for show genuine interest in my life. “Connor is okay, I bought a little cube off of the Dark Web that’s supposed to keep him safe. It’s stolen military tech, so I hope that it works. But he’s okay and I’m more worried about Alana anyways.”

 

     Jared’s face darkened at the mention of Alana, and he cast his eyes over at her. Her mother (I was pretty sure the woman sitting next to her and holding her hand was her mother. Maybe she was an older sister or aunt, but mother seemed to be the most obvious choice.) also shot Alana a look, and she moved her thumb around in circles on the back skin of Alana’s hand.

 

     “My daughter isn’t doing too well.” Alana’s mother sounded like she was just trying to keep it all together just a little bit longer. She sighed and looked up at me, unshed tears glittered in her eyes. “The doctors don’t know what to think, they think that it’s because she’s a transhuman. They say that there’s some kind of computer virus inside of her mechanics, and that it’s crippling her human parts.”

 

     “How did she pick up the virus?” I tried to think back to all of the things that I remembered that transhumans had to worry about when it came to malware and computer viruses. If the computer virus or malware that they downloaded was dangerous or damaging, everything could be over for them. Brain damage, death of a Squip, or just plain death were possible if the virus or malware was too harmful. “Doesn’t she take precautions?”

 

     “Of course she does, but we can’t trace the virus back to anything.” Alana’s mother sighed and closer her eyes. Alana didn’t look very good, between the breathing piece over her mouth and nose, and the wires and IV sticking out of her arm, she looked like she was going to die. I wasn’t okay with that thought. “The only way that she could have possibly downloaded a virus this damaging would be through means of downloading it herself.”

 

     I was about to say something about how Alana was smart and she knew what she was doing when the sound of footsteps shut me up. I remembered hearting those footsteps, their cadence had been engraved into my mind. I knew that those perfect footfalls could only belong to one person. One person who had blamed me for what had happened to Alana. One person who probably didn’t want to see me right now, and the person who I wanted to see most in the world.

 

     “Or if someone downloaded it without her knowledge.” My heart stopped beating as I heard Zoe’s voice. I turned around, and Zoe stood before me in all of her glory. She looked tired and her hair was only slightly contained in a messy braid, she looked like she needed coffee and a good night’s sleep. “She _was_ doing digital work on my father’s servers. One can only speculate from there, and it’s pretty obvious that my father wouldn’t leave something as important as his personal records sitting without something to deter any hackers.”

 

     “But it still doesn’t explain why he would go as far as create something that would _kill_ a Squip, and bring a transhuman to their knees.” Jared argued, though I could see that it was half-hearted. Zoe maneuvered around me without any effort, moving next to Jared and standing next to him. I wasn’t sure to react to this action from Zoe, I felt very dumb for not having Connor around to help me. “I mean, Danny is dead. Alana is close to full system failure, and that’s not even taking her gunshot wound into account. The virus might just have more effect because she’s so weak, like a normal sickness.”

 

     A pit built in my stomach at the mention of Danny’s death. Danny and Alana had been pretty much best friends, as close as a human and her Squip could be. The idea that someone so close to Alana was dead broke my heart. What kind of world would she be facing when she woke up? One without her Squip, but at least one with her friends who were ready to do anything for her.

 

     “You saw what my father did to her!” Zoe motioned to Alana, and I saw Alana’s mom pale slightly. Zoe’s voice sounded just like it did when she had confronted me three days ago. I wondered if she had had any time to heal yet. “We know what he’s capable of, he allowed his infant son to die to conduct an experiment! My father doesn’t care about human life, he even said it himself on multiple occasions!”

 

      “We can’t prove anything yet.” Jared shook his head, though I could see that he agreed with Zoe. Zoe rolled her eyes, and then looked at me. We locked eyes for a second, and she opened her mouth to say something to me, but then closed her mouth again.

 

     A blanket of silence fell over the room for a second. Alana’s mom looked at her daughter, she was still holding her hand tightly. Clearly, she was disturbed by what Jared and Zoe were talking about. Jared was tapping his foot to the beat of a song only he could hear while he stared off into space and tapped his fingers against the Band Aids in thought. Zoe looked at her feet, studying her feet as she thought about what to say. I cursed myself silently for not putting Connor back in my head and I adjusted my backpack nervously.

 

     “Evan, would you please come with me?” Zoe finally said, her voice almost cracking. Her eyes were filled with so much emotion they were almost blank, it was tough to believe that this was the same girl who I had admired from afar for so long. Now, here she was, in my life and she was breaking apart. There had to be some irony there, right? “I want to speak to you. Privately.”

 

    I nodded at Zoe’s request and then followed her out of the room. She held the door open for me just a little longer than she had to, and as soon as she let go of the door, she crumbled onto the floor. She let her back slide down the perfectly white wall of the hospital as she pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her face against the tops of her knees as her shoulders shook with silent sobs and cries for help.

 

     Without thinking, I dove to the ground and put my arm around her. I pulled her closer to me, and I could feel that she was shaking and shivering. She refused to make a sound, her world of suffering was going to be a silent one. Her braid was thrown over her right shoulder, and I moved it so that it fell down her back. I sat to her left, I was the only thing between her and the door to Alana’s room.

 

      “How could this have happened?” Zoe whispered through her silent sobs. She looked up at me, and I saw that her face was devoid of any makeup. She must have cried enough in the past couple of days to ensure that wearing makeup would only create a bigger mess than what it was worth. “We’re just _kids,_ Evan! We’re not supposed to get shot, or commit suicide or bring corporations to their knees!”

 

     “Sometimes the future that we think we should have isn’t the one that we get.” I spoke softly, wrapping my arm fully around Zoe’s shoulders and leaning my head against hers. I had never been so close to her, and yet I knew that right now human touch was something that both of us needed. “Yes, we’re kids and what happened was really, really messed up. But, we’re kids so of course it got out of hand so quickly. We thought we could bring a corporation to its knees. We were wrong.”

 

     I was surprised by my words, but seemed like Connor’s speeches had rubbed off on me. I was beginning to sound more philosophical, and I liked the way that it made me sound. I sounded smarter, and just overall better than I did before. I knew that Zoe and Connor didn’t talk much when Connor was alive, so I guessed that Zoe wouldn’t noticed how alike Connor and I sounded now. It was funny how much we had picked up from each other.

 

     “But I don’t want to be wrong!” Zoe cried, hot and angry tears ran down her face. Zoe focused on a set thing on the wall directly across from us, she couldn’t look me in the eyes with this anger in her soul. “I want to have every single lawbreaking bastard locked up! No one else has to get hurt for answers, no one else has to die for my father!”

 

     “And no one else will die, Zoe.” I ran my hand up and down on her shoulder, trying to remind her that I was here for her. “He’s been caught, no one else is going to fall for him. He has no more pawns to throw on the chessboard, he can’t strike back against us anymore. We’ve won, Zoe.”

 

     “At what cost?” Zoe sobbed again, pressing her hands against her temples. She was shaking, and I could only imagine the toll that watching everything unfold had had on her mental state. “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t do anything! I just think about the way that the blood looked on my hands. . . God, Evan, I’m so messed up! The kind of messed up that can _never_ be corrected, and nothing is going to make this better!”

 

     “I can’t sleep without Connor repressing my dreams.” I said, trying to make Zoe feel better. Zoe looked up at me with expecting and almost fearful eyes, so many emotions were racing across her face and her soul. “I can’t eat, every time I close my eyes I see Alana’s blood. The only thing I’ve thought about for days was that you and Jared must hate me. But, when I heard about this meeting, I was sure that it was because I was the only one who hadn’t healed yet.”

 

    “I guess we’re just broken together.” Zoe chuckled darkly as she wiped away at the last of her tears. She closed her eyes and let her body weight fall onto me, and I stifled a small gasp. “Maybe I can find some solace in that. I just needed someone who would understand what this is like. I figured that I was the only one who was going through this. That was dumb of me.”

 

     “You’re not alone, but we have to work through this still.” I tried to think of what Connor would say, and that seemed like something he would say. Even though today’s battle was over, it didn’t mean that tomorrow’s hadn’t started yet. Yeah, something like that. “But we can get through this together. We just have to stick it out just a little bit longer.”

 

     “I just realized that Connor isn’t around.” Zoe sat up on her own, and I felt slightly sad when she moved away from me. Fear was etched on her face, she feared that something had happened to Connor. “Where is he? Did something happen to him? God, Evan, please tell me he’s okay!”

 

     “He’s fine, there’s no reason to get so worked up.” A slight smile played at the tips of my lips, as I spoke using my most calming voice. I took my backpack off of my back and dug around until I found the little storage cube that Connor was in. “He’s in here. I got it from the Dark Web, it’ll keep him safe from anyone who tries to hurt him. I just didn’t want anything to happen to him.”

 

     “Good thinking.” Zoe nodded, and looked at the cube with wonder in her eyes, but the fire died quickly. She turned away from it, playing with her braid absent-mindedly. “I got rid of Rose. She gave me up to my father and his goons, she was working for him the whole time. I had her taken out, I’m now without a Squip. I’ll never put another one of those things in my head, they’re nothing but spy tools and experiments.”

 

     “Has that been proven?” My ears perked up, I knew that Zoe didn’t usually say things that didn’t have some kind of meaning behind them. I messed with the cube that Connor was inside, trying to remember how to get the Squip out of the cube. “I mean, the documents that we looked at were pretty detailed, did they really reveal those things in the words?”

 

     “Yeah, and they’re still being looked at.” Zoe watched curiously as I fiddled with the cube in my hands. “As it turns out, we leaked a lot of information. Well, Alana was the one who leaked it, but we helped, I guess. The news has been going crazy over it, and then Alana got shot and it just made things blow up more and more. Nothing is ever as simple as anyone says, and these documents prove that.”

 

     “Wow.” I stopped doing what I was doing with the cube and I let the information sink in for a second. “So, what you’re telling me is that we have enough information to show the world the SquipTech was just messing around with Connor, and that he’s not a menace to society like everyone says he is?”

 

     “I don’t know if we have enough to say that, exactly.” Zoe bit her lip, she didn’t want to get my hopes up. “But I don’t think that anyone will be able to be angry at Connor anymore. He didn’t do anything wrong, he was raised as a human by an unloving family. What happened to him isn’t really his fault, but people are still afraid of an AI that can learn and feel human emotions.”

 

     “It’s not like Connor is some kind of threat.” I rolled my eyes, it was hard to believe that someone would want to lock Connor up or punish him for just existing. I scanned the outside of the cube for any kind of button, and I finally found something that looked like it would release Connor from the small prison that he was in. “He’s just a Squip that just happened to have the perpetual mind of a teenage boy. Okay, yeah, I might be able to see how people would think that he’s a threat.”

 

     I pressed the button on the cube, and the green LED lights on the outside of the cube flashed the same light grey that that was Connor’s aura. My heart leapt, the small fear that something might have happened to Connor while he was in the cube was now acute and it was eating away at me. I just needed to see him again, and I needed to know that the stolen tech wasn’t going to hurt him in the future.

 

     “God, that thing was getting so cramped.” Connor complained from my shoulder, and both Zoe and I looked at him with a surprised expression. My heart soared, Connor was okay. Zoe looked like she felt the same way, and Connor passed both of us confused looks. “Let’s please _never_ do that again. I think I’m ready to push my luck with the reporters and the tech junkies who are looking for a paycheck.”

 

    “Didn’t you always say that you didn’t need exercise because you got a good enough workout pushing your luck?” Zoe cocked an eyebrow at her brother, her lips curled into an amused smile. I loved the way that she looked when she was happy like that, I loved to see her happy. “I see that not even dying can change things about some people, Connor Murphy included.”

 

     “Well, I think that it’s good that I haven’t changed yet.” Connor gave Zoe a half-hearted shrug. He ran a hand through his hair, the stress was back so quickly after his joke. Connor looked up at me, and I could tell that he just wanted to know about Alana. “How is everything going? Is, um, Alana, you know, okay?”

 

     “She’s not dead.” Zoe looked away from Connor and wrapped her fingers around her upper arms. Her fingernails were coated with chipped grey polish, it was chipped almost exactly like Connor’s. Part of me wondered if the Murphy siblings had some kind of innate magic that allowed them to do that. “She’s not doing very well, there’s a problem with her cybernetics, they aren’t responding very well to her ‘human’ injuries. There’s some sort of virus in her cybernetics.”

 

     “Then let me look for it.” Connor held out one hand and pressed the other to his chest. His eyes begged Zoe and I to let him do this, even though she knew that he’d do it anyways even if we said no. “I can go into her cybernetics and see what the problem is. I have to do this for her, it’s all of our collective faults. We can’t just sit here and do nothing, we have to try to help Alana!”

 

     “I don’t think that that’s the best idea.” I whispered, trying to think of all of the ways that Connor’s plan could backfire. He could get himself hurt, or maybe even killed. No one else had to get hurt, not now. “We don’t know what might happen to you. Connor, you’re one of a kind. There’s nothing else like you out there that we know about, and the world can’t risk losing you.”

 

     “No, I think that he should do it.” Jared piped up, and everyone’s eyes darted to him. Part of me wondered how long he had been standing above Zoe and I, and how much had had seen and heard. The other part of me didn’t care, it wasn’t like it really mattered anyways, I’m sure that he was going through what Zoe and I were. “What’s the worst that could happen? Connor can take care of himself, and if he thinks that this is the way to help Alana, then who are we to tell him not to do this?”

 

     “It just seems dangerous, anything could go wrong.” I shook my head, worry filled my thoughts. What if Connor never came back? Or he caught virus that Alana had in her cybernetics and he was never the same? It all seemed like too much, and I felt a tightening in my chest. “I just don’t know about this. I really think that we shouldn’t do this, it could get you really hurt, Connor.”

 

     “Screw that!” Connor cried, looking from Jared, to me, to Zoe. He had murder and determination in his eyes, he hated what had happened to Alana so much that he was ready to kill someone. “Larry hired a sniper to shadow us in that warehouse, or did you all forget? He allowed his son to die, he didn’t stop my suicide attempt because he wanted to further himself. There is nothing he wouldn’t do. And create a virus so bad it kills a transhuman is one of the things he’d do.”

 

     “Connor. . .” Zoe bit her lip, not meeting Connor’s eyes. She sighed and tapped her fingers against her thighs, it was like she was trying to think of the best words to say. “You don’t have anything to prove. You _don’t_ have to get yourself hurt just to get some answers. We already learned that. But, if you must, just stay safe, okay? I don’t want to lose you again.”

 

     Connor looked at Zoe with an emotion that was halfway between shock and happiness. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I could see that I was seeing something important happening in front of my eyes. I smiled, happy that Connor and Zoe could just be siblings again. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t fight, but that did mean that they were now on the same team.

 

     “Come in here, dear boy,” Zoe sang, the notes were perfect and she looked like she knew all of the lyrics. “Have a cigar, you’re gonna go far-”

 

     “You’re gonna fly high,” Connor sang in perfect pitch with his sister, I had never heard his singing voice but it was perfect. “You’re never gonna die! You’re gonna make it if you try, they’re gonna love you!”

 

     Zoe and Connor smiled at each other and laughed as Zoe stood up and they walked into Alana’s room together. It felt almost wrong that they were singing here, in a hospital, but who was I to judge? They were just mending their relationship, and if singing songs that I’d never heard was included in that, then so be it. Jared sent me a confused look, and I just shrugged in response.

 

    “What was that?” Jared asked in a whisper as he hung back in the doorway of the room. Zoe and Alana’s mother were talking in quiet tones, Zoe was once again solemn and collected. “Do you have any idea what they just sang? I’ve never heard lyrics like that, songs today don’t talk about _cigars,_ of all of the things.”

 

     “I think they both said they liked some old band, but what was the name?” I tried to recall the name of the band that Connor had told me him and Zoe had listened to when they were kids. It was a human name of some kind, but what was it? “I think it was, like, Pink Floyd? But, see, what I just don’t understand is, which one of them is called Pink? And why would they name a band after a guy who was in it, why not pick a new name?”

 

     “I don’t know, but I think that we’d better make sure that no one dies right now.” Jared turned his attention to Connor and Alana, and I could see the alarm etched all over his face. With a spark of shock, I realized that Jared did care for Connor, even just a little. “Connor has already done that once, and I don’t know if he wants to do that again. I’ve always heard death is painful.”

 

     “Yeah, we should make sure that Connor doesn’t get himself hurt.” I rushed into the room, standing to Alana’s left. She didn’t look very good; her face was ashen and she looked. . . Off. There was something about her that just wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I looked at Connor who was hovering over Alana for a second. “Are you sure about this?”

 

     “I think that I can just go in, find the virus and get out.” Connor shrugged, focusing on Alana’s face. He sighed and then looked at me, and I could see the doubt in his eyes. “But I don’t know if it’ll be that easy. Maneuvering though normal – and open – Squip implants is simple. But, this is hardware and software that I’ve never encountered before. This could be a challenge.”

 

      “But you can do it, right?” Alana’s mother spoke up, and I saw that her eyes glittered with unshed tears again. I hadn’t thought about how hard this whole ordeal must have been on her, her daughter was hurt and in critical condition, and she was left looking at her daughter’s friends for help. She must feel helpless. “Don’t hurt yourself, dear, but if you can do this, I’d love to know who put my daughter in this state. Whoever it is must understand and serve time for what they’ve done.”

 

     Connor just nodded once at her, it was almost as if he didn’t trust himself to speak. One second he was there, and the next he was gone. I bit my lip, and looked at Zoe, who was holding Alana’s hand. I wasn’t sure what to do, Jared had already started pacing in the farthest corner of the room. Anxiety curled in my chest and I placed a hand over my heart, willing it to stop beating so fast.

 

      I walked closer to Zoe, it felt like being closer to another human being would help with this horrible wait. The search for answers was getting closer and closer to the end, but the kilometers seemed to be getting longer the closer we got to finally figuring everything out. Now that the world was watching and waiting to see the first AI raised as a human, the kilometers had been doubled and tripled.

 

     One minute of waiting turned into two, and I could feel the collective stress level in the room increase tenfold. Questions raced through my head about whether or not Connor was okay, but I wasn’t going to give into the fear. As I looked around, I could see that everyone in this room needed at least one person who wasn’t going to break. I had to be that person for them, they were my friends. I had to be stronger than death and pain, if that was even possible.

 

     All at once, I felt a presence in the back of my head. I perked up, Connor was back! I smiled and I readied myself for an acidic comment about something that I had done wrong, because Connor would be the first person to point it out to me as soon as he could. However, when he flashed in front of my face, I could see that something was wrong. He flickered and glitched for a second, and my heart skipped a beat.

 

    “Don’t worry about the flickering.” Connor raised a hand to stop everyone from talking all at once. Jared had stopped pacing, he was stuck in place as a look of amazement and horror played over his face. Zoe and I were both in awe that Connor was back, and Alana’s mother looked like she wanted to give Connor a hug. “It’s just that I’ve moved around a lot, and it can be a lot for me to take in all at once. I found the virus, but it’s actually some kind of malware. It’s like a Squip that can’t speak, but it _can_ mess up a transhuman pretty well.”

 

     “What does that mean?” Alana’s mother clutched Alana’s hand harder than before. I almost wanted Alana to whimper quietly at the pain, a reaction would be something, at least. “Is she going to be okay? Do you know who designed the Squip? Should I be worried? Is this an attack? Do I have to worry about my boys?”

 

     Connor was taken back for a second, and he hesitated before speaking. He knew that his words meant a lot to Alana’s mother, but I could tell that he wasn’t used to getting this much attention that mattered. My heart wrenched, and I remembered Connor telling me about putting up an act in front of people for most of his life. I tried to send some encouraging words his way, but he wouldn’t open up the telepathic communication for some reason.

 

     “There’s no need for you to worry, any of you.” Connor seemed almost surprised by the words he was saying, and his eyes got wider as he ran a hand through his hair. “What I can say is that whatever kind of Squip that’s in Alana’s body isn’t normal. Not only that, but I can’t find a signature on it, which means that it was probably created by someone who was working alone. The patent for the Squip was most likely sold to SquipTech, and that was the end of that.”

 

     “But all this is speculation?” Alana’s mom looked distraught, it was even worse than how she had been acting before. She looked at her daughter with a kind of love that I’d never seen before, it hurt me to know how hard this must be on her. “There’s no telling who did this at this point? If so, I get that. These things take time, and I understand. But please tell me, someone will be caught for this, right?”

 

     “I don’t know.” Connor admitted in a choked voice, and I looked at him with surprise. Couldn’t he trace this back? Or, if not him, couldn’t someone? Digital fingerprints were everywhere, there was no escape from that, without or without a Squip. “Honestly, whoever coded this might not know what they created. We don’t know if the Squip itself even knows how much damage it’s doing. But, what we do know, is that we can trace this back to going on Larry’s computers. It looks like a worm, capable of mutating and changing to infect more computers and Squips.”

 

     “How do we take it away?” Alana’s mom asked, she seemed to have dropped the subject of finding whoever had done this. Her eyes scanned Alana’s face, and then looked at Connor. “How do we remove it? It should be simple, right? Most Squips can be removed through the simple means of ingesting certain chemicals and biproducts that are created through chemical processes. Let’s just take it out.”

 

     “If I were to try that, there’s a high chance that it will kill her.” Connor didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and I felt the breath catch in my throat. I felt someone grab onto my hand, and I saw that Zoe’s fingernails were digging into the soft flesh of the back of my hand. Unshed tears were filling up her eyes, but she was once again silent in her pain. “I can’t just waltz right in there and remove it. It could cause her heart to stop beating, or it could stop all brain function. Either way, nothing good will come of it.”

 

     “I. . .” A couple of tears fell down Alana’s mom’s face, but she made no move to wipe them away. She allowed them to roll down her face, until they fell onto her hands below. She laughed in an awkward and nervous tone, more tears fell down her face. “I’m so sorry about this. You’re just kids, after all. You didn’t _ask_ for this. Neither did Alana or I, but you shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

 

     No one knew what to say. Zoe sighed and loosened her grip on my hand just a little bit, while Jared stopped all movement and bit his tongue. Connor’s shoulders rose and fell sharply, it looked like he was getting into the habit of breathing again. I ran my tongue over my canines for a couple of seconds, looking up to Alana’s mother’s eyes. She wouldn’t look at me, but I was sure that we all felt the same way right now. No one had expected Alana’s mother to not put up some kind of fight or not to blame us for what happened to Alana.

 

     I opened my mouth to say something, but I could hear something very loud in the hallway. I turned to the door when I heard it open, and two small figures ran into the room and ended up near Alana’s mother. The two figures looked like they were still in grade school, and they looked like they were brothers, almost like they were extensions of each other. I racked my brain for some kind of answer, Alana had never told me that she had brothers.

 

     “Damien! Jeffery!” I heard a male voice call, and a second later a figure appeared in the doorframe. He was tall, a little over two meters tall and he wore plain jeans and a grey t-shirt. He seemed to be gasping for breath, and I could only imagine that he had been trying to keep up with the children, who I was assuming were named Damien and Jeffery. “Why did you run so far ahead? Did I not tell you to be calm and collected in here?”

 

     “But _Dad,_ we haven’t seen Mom in forever!” The taller child spoke up. He had slightly darker skin than Alana, it was almost the same color as his brother’s. He immediately pointed at his brother and frowned. “Besides, Jeffery was the one who started running first. Blame him! I just followed his lead!”

 

     “I don’t care who started it-” The man was about to launch into a tirade about it didn’t matter who started doing something first, because he was going to end it because he was a parent, when he stopped. He looked around, seemingly confused by Jared, Zoe and I’s appearance. When he saw Connor, his feet shifted towards the hallway, and he looked like he wanted to run away. “What’s going on here? Susan, who are these people?”

 

     “They’re Alana’s friends, Jacob.” Alana’s mom, Susan, said. She held Jeffery and Damien close to her body, and Jeffery was sitting on her lap. I wasn’t sure who was younger out of the two, but it didn’t seem to matter, they both acted alike. Jeffery had his head leaned against Susan’s collarbone, and I wondered how long it had been since they had seen each other. “You might know Evan Hansen and Connor Murphy?”

 

     _“You’re_ the two kids from the news?” Jacob asked in an incredulous tone. He seemed like he wanted to leave even more now that he knew who Connor and I were. I shifted uncomfortably, and I felt Zoe’s grip on my hand tighten again. “The ones who stole all of those documents and exposed what SquipTech was doing when no one was looking? The world’s first AI that was raised as a human, and the unwitting human who just happened to have that AI in his Squip implants?”

 

     “That’s us.” Connor gave Jacob a nod, but I could tell that Connor didn’t know how to act right now. He sat down on my shoulder, and tried to make himself look more like a regular Squip. I could tell that he was trying to shoot down the idea of being the ‘damaged AI’ that the media and the world governments saw him as and made him out to be.

 

     “Figures that _this_ would be the kind of company that Alana keeps.” Jacob sneered and rolled his eyes. I looked to Connor, and then Zoe as I tried to figure out if anyone knew what was going on. Anger uncurled in my heart, how dare Jacob talk so badly about his daughter while she was seriously injured? “Susan, I need to talk to you in private, please. The boys can stay here, I guess. Hopefully the other two teenagers in this room are normal.”

 

     Susan rolled her eyes, kissed Jeffery on the top of the head and set him down on the floor sweetly before following Jacob out of the room. Jeffery and Damien looked over at Zoe, Jared, Connor and I just as we heard the sound of the door close behind Jacob and Susan. I bit my lip, I wasn’t very good with kids, I hoped that Jared had some skill. He did have a little sister, he could help take care of two boys, right?

 

     “What just happened?” Jared all but shouted, laughing worriedly and running a hand through his hair. He studied Jeffery and Damien for a second, then shifted his attention to Zoe, Connor and I. “Was that Alana’s dad or something? Are you-” Jared pointed at Jeffery and Damien for a second “-her brothers? What is going on? What did that Jacob guy just say about Zoe and I being normal?”

 

     “Um, yeah, those people are our mom and dad.” Damien spoke up, tapping his foot against the floor as his nerves got the best of him. Jeffery sat down in the chair that Susan had been sitting in, and Damien stood near his brother. It was cute how they stuck so close to each other, they were like each other’s better halves. “Since Alana, our sister, got hurt, Dad took us up here to see her. Dad and Alana don’t talk much, Dad doesn’t like Squips or transhumans.”

 

     “When she became one, Mommy took her away to this town.” Jeffery had a small and airy voice, and he hugged himself as he thought about what had happened in the past. Damien placed a hand on Jeffery’s arm, and I smiled softly at the brotherly love. “We haven’t seen her since Damien and I were little. I was two when she left, Damien was four. She’s so messed up now, though. I miss her.”

 

     Jeffery started breathing quickly, and his shoulders shook with sobs. Damien pulled him into a hug, and the rest of us just stood there, helpless. After a second of hesitation, Zoe got up and walked over to the small boys, hugging them. The boys looked so little in her arms, but they seemed to relax as she got closer to them. She was whispering reassuring words in Jeffery’s ear, and I felt my love for her grow.

 

     “It’s just not fair that I almost never got to see her.” Jeffery sniffled, and Zoe wiped away his tears as quickly as she could. I had never pegged Zoe as the motherly type, but it made sense somehow. “I mean, after she got the cybernetics, Dad never let us see her. He thought that we would want to be like her. But, I just wish that he would have put everything aside and just let us see her more often.”

 

     “I’m so sorry, Jeffery.” Zoe cooed as she kneeled in front of him. She hugged him one more time, trying her best to console him. “Things are going to get better, I promise. The doctors are saying that Alana’s going to get better, so you have nothing to worry about.”

 

     “That’s not what Dad told us on the ride up here.” Damien raised his hand as if Zoe were a teacher in school. All color drained from Zoe’s face, but she quickly recovered.

 

     “Why would he say that without being here?” She asked, smirking slightly and cocking her head. “Well, he’s wrong. Nothing bad is going to happen to Alana. She’s going to be just fine. And, until she gets better, you guys can stay here. With my friends and I. And Alana, of course.”

 

     “I’d like that.” Jeffery nodded quickly, joy and elation flashed across his face for a few seconds. It was quickly replaced with fear as he looked at his sister, and Damien followed his gaze. “I just hope that you’re right. I want to see Alana again so badly, I hate what happened to her. But, maybe when she wakes up I can get a Squip of my own! She always said that she’d help me with that.”

 

     No one had anything to say to that. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of Squips anymore, now that I knew what the company that created them was capable of. Zoe had gotten rid of hers, and Connor had been so thoroughly messed up by that company that it wasn’t even funny. It wasn’t like we were going to crush his dreams, but it felt almost wrong to like Squips at this point. They had become nothing more than nuisances lately.

 

     “When is she going to wake up, do you think?” Damien asked, poking his sister tentatively on the arm right above where the IV was stuck into her vein. I bit my lip, and I saw that Connor was doing the same. Jared instantly became very intrigued by studying the ceiling. Zoe seemed to be the one who would answer. “I mean, she’s going to wake up soon, right? She has those cybernetics, they’re going to help her heal faster, right?”

 

     “I don’t know.” Zoe admitted, and sighed heavily.

 

* * *

 

 

“Evan Hansen?”

 

     “Hmm?” I looked up from my phone, (I had been texting my mom to let her know that I was okay) and I saw a woman who looked to be about twenty staring down at me. She was wearing a pencil skirt and a loose-fitting blouse, and she looked like she was someone who had a very serious career. “Oh, hi, yeah, I’m Evan Hansen. C-can I help you?”

 

     I was sitting close to Alana’s room, I was just around the corner, really. I didn’t want to travel out too far, but Jared had had to go home to look after Ella, and Zoe, Jeffery and Damien were playing together and I just wanted some time alone to text my mom and try and recharge my social batteries. I quickly hit the power button on my phone, and I shoved back into my pocket, I didn’t want to be rude and text while someone was trying to talk to me in a real-world conversation.

 

     “My name is Phoebe.” The woman introduced herself. Phoebe leaned down and held out her hand for me to shake, I shook her and hand she smiled. She stood up fully again, the smile was still playing her perfectly red lips. “I’m your lawyer, Mr Hansen. Would you like to find a private place for us to talk?”

 

    “Lawyer?” Connor appeared on my shoulder at once. He had been trying to decipher the code of the mystery Squip inside of Alana’s head. Now, he stood on my shoulder with his arms crossed and his left eyebrow cocked. “Why in the world would Hansen need a lawyer? No one called you, and Hansen didn’t do anything wrong, so I don’t think that you’ll be needed here.”

 

     “Oh, no no!” Phoebe laughed, it sounded like tinkling bells and broken glass all in one. It was disturbing, to say the least. “I’m not here because Mr Hansen called me, it’s actually quite the opposite. The federal government sent me, I’m your defense lawyer against SquipTech. You could fight them on a lot of different charges, Mr Hansen. Defamation of character, wrongful imprisonment, withholding-”

 

     “Let me stop you right there.” Connor’s voice was acid, his tone struck out loud and clear that he wasn’t playing or messing around. Despite his small size, I could see that Phoebe wanted to take a step back and away from him. “I don’t know why you’re _really_ here, but this is over. There’s nothing here that Hansen is going to sue for, everything is fine. Okay? So, I suggest that you leave before we have to call someone to take you away.”

 

     Phoebe looked hurt. She crossed her arms over her chest awkwardly as she bit her lip. Her eyes, with eyelids almost fully weighed down by perfectly applied eyeliner and mascara, showed the hurt that she felt. She took a shaky breath and looked at me with a glare filled with determination, and I almost wanted to take a step away from her, she was beginning to scare me.

 

     “Mr Hansen, this is _not_ a matter for your Squip to decide.” Phoebe growled, her voice had lost its luster. Her eyes glowed with anger, and I wanted to apologize and take her up on her offer. “You cannot let these people just walk away with your rights. You have to stand up for yourself, and if you don’t do it, now you’ll never be able to!”

 

     “I think that we should hear her out, Connor.” I said, glaring at Connor. Couldn’t he understand that parts of this fight were mine? I knew that I couldn’t physically lash out, but I possibly get some kind of settlement. SquipTech had to pay, but in a civilized way. I turned my attention up to Phoebe, smiling slightly. “I’d love to meet with you later. But, later, please? Things are kind of. . . Tense right now, and I don’t think I could even focus on working against SquipTech right now.”

 

     “I completely understand.” Phoebe nodded, her expression grew solemn. She then smiled and reached into a pocket on her skirt and handed me a slip of paper, and as she set it in my outstretched hand, I saw that it was a business card. It was white with plain black text, but it had little lavender flowers on the outside edges of the text. “Just call me whenever you can, Mr Hansen. I do really want to help you. My family has been hurt by this company, too, so I promise that I’ll fight to get you everything you deserve.”

 

     “Thank you.” I whispered, standing up as I spoke. I could see that Phoebe was telling the truth, and I wondered how many other stories about Squips that hurt people were covered up. Alana and Connor couldn’t be the only ones who had had their lives ruined by SquipTech. Mrs Murphy couldn’t be the only one who thought she was being spied on.

 

     “Don’t mention it.” Phoebe shook her head, she seemed almost bashful for a second. Her eyes locked onto mine for a second, and I could hear Connor yelling incoherent cruse words in my brain for a couple of seconds. “I’m here to help. And, even if you’re Squip doesn’t believe me, I really do care. Call me whenever you’re ready to fight back.”

 

     With a wave Phoebe turned on her heel and was gone as quick as she had come. Part of me wondered how life just kept throwing random people my way. Part of me hoped that they would become important one day, and that soon this whole dumb issue of what Mr Murphy and the company he worked for had done was over. I just wanted all of this to end, but with a happy ending.

 

    “Why did you do that?” Connor appeared in front of my face, his anger was unapparelled. He was seething, even his eyes were burning with a hatred and anger I had almost never seen in any other person’s eyes. “Why would you throw a bone to someone like that? You’re an idiot, Hansen! Now she’s going to think she’s wanted in this problem! We can handle all of this just fine _ourselves!”_

“Connor, look around!” I cried, feeling tired and worn out. It had all caught up to me; the pain, the fear, the paranoia, the sleepless nights. I could feel the weight of my bad choices weighing down on me, on my friends. “We _can’t_ handle this ourselves! We have got to get other people involved! Look, I like the idea of working with people I don’t know about as much as you do! But it has to be done. For the greater good.”

 

     “My father would constantly preach about the ‘greater good’, Hansen.” Connor snarled, his upper lip curled with anger. “And just look what it cost me! Cost you, cost our friends! We cannot afford to bring anyone else into this fight! We can fight back ourselves, we have to! This cannot go on any longer!”

 

     “It’s not going to go on any longer, because as soon as Alana wakes up, we’re going to end this!” I seethed, I had never felt this much toxic anger in my life. It scared me, but I wasn’t going to let Connor get his way. Bringing people into this fight was just what had to happen, none of us could prevent it any longer, not even if we wanted to. “We just have to wait until we’re all present, and then all of this is going to end! Then we can put the bad people behind bars, and make sure that everyone lives happily ever after!”

 

     “Not everyone!” Connor replied, matching my anger. I was no longer tired, now I was ready to prove to Connor that I was right. “Hansen, how big of a child are you? God, Alana isn’t going to make it! I thought I made that clear, unless you _didn’t_ understand my foreboding message about her brain function? She’s _never_ going to wake up, she’s _never_ going to help us, she’s _never_ going to see her family again!”

 

     Connor’s eyes got wide after he had yelled at me, and the silence that fell around us seemed almost tangible. Connor covered his mouth with his hands, and his shocked and fearful eyes met mine. I looked back at him with a hurt expression but I didn’t have any more tears to shed. Not this time.

 

     “I’m sorry.” Connor whispered, he teleported back to my shoulder. His voice was distraught, it was impossible that he meant to say what he had just said, but I wasn’t sure how to react. “Look, I know that that was a shitty was of finding out that your friend is going to die. And I’m sorry. But, you really can’t tell anyone else. She might make it through, and we just can’t do that to her family.”

 

     “Connor, what if we really do loose her?” I sat back down with my back against the wall of the hallway. I looked up at the ceiling, the white of the tiles was almost painful to my tired eyes. “What then? How do we just move on? Because, when my dad left, I didn’t know how to cope. Now that I’m older, I think I can look back and say that I never did move past it. How can I trust myself to not just give into the pain again?”

 

     “Well now, unlike back then, you have me.” Connor smiled. The smile was broken and it looked very forced, but it was perfect. I wanted to cry and break down from exhaustion and happiness. Everything felt backwards, up was down and what was left was now right. “And I promise that I’ll never let you slip. I’ll never let you fall. You have people now, Hansen, and nothing is going to happen to you.”

 

     “Thank you.” I bit my lip to keep from crying, and I let out a sigh and all of the tension in my muscles. I hadn’t realized it, but the stress has just piled up and multiplied and I had only realized it now, but it was slowly killing me. “You have no idea how much that means. I think that things could be okay now.”

 

     “I just hope you’re right.” Connor sat on my shoulder, kicking his legs out and hitting my collarbone lightly each time that he did so. I heard the distant rumblings of footsteps, with the sound of human speech – cries and yells – mixed into the sound. Connor and I met each other’s eyes for a second, and then we followed the sound with our eyes as a dozen people all dressed in nurse and doctor clothes ran past us. “What the heck?”

 

    I watched them quietly for a few seconds, before my eyes got wide and I looked to Connor as adrenaline flowed into my blood. More people in hospital uniforms ran past me, some of them were holding clipboards, but most of them had nothing in their hands and looks of determination and fear on their faces. I waited until I couldn’t hear any more people running, and I threw myself up from the ground. I stumbled on my way up, my legs had fallen asleep.

 

     “Any idea as to what’s going on?” I asked, following behind the people at a brisk walking pace. They were all running in the direction of Alana’s room, and I needed to just walk into her room and see her, safe and sound again. A pulsing headache cut into my motivation, and part of me just wanted to wait and figure out what was going on at a later date. “Is it something to do with Alana? Is she in danger?”

 

     “I don’t know.” Connor admitted, his eyes were wide with fear. I rounded the corner to get to Alana’s room, and I could see that there was a literal _line of doctors_ standing in front of it. My heart started beating faster, and I could feel my breathing begin to become shallow the more that the panic set in. “Hansen, you need to take a couple of steps back. These people know what they’re doing, _do not go in that room.”_

Connor’s last words were almost growled. I could understand that he didn’t want me to walk into that room, but I also didn’t know how much I really _needed_ to walk into that room and know that everything was okay. Connor had just told me that everything had the potential to be okay, and everything wasn’t going to be not okay. No, things had to work, or else what was there left to live for? My headache got worse with every step I took.

 

    _Hansen, please just think about this for a second and give everything a while to calm down._ Connor pleaded with me in my mind, not wanting to speak aloud because he feared that his voice might get lost in the din of the other voices that seemed to floor the hallway around us. _Take some time to sit down and calm yourself down. Getting yourself hurt more emotionally isn’t going to help anyone._

_Connor, I don’t want to just sit around and allow things to happen anymore._ My heart ached, and I felt bile rise in the back of my throat. I didn’t know what to do, sitting back down wasn’t an option but I also didn’t want to retreat but moving forward didn’t seem like a good idea either. So, I just stood there, like a lost puppy. _I don’t know what to do, everything just feels so wrong._

_Just hold out for a little while longer, Hansen._ Connor replied, his voice was distant. I hoped that he was collecting information about Alana, I really needed to know what was going on. But, Alana was fine and nothing was really going on, so none of these doctors should even be here. A nervous laugh tried to bubble up in my chest, but I pushed it down. _It looks like they’re just checking one of the machines, it went haywire. I don’t think that there’s anything to really worry about._

_Connor, don’t lie to me. Please tell what is really going on._ I begged, moving my body towards Alana’s room just a single step.

 

     _I think that you should actually try to get inside that room._ Connor amended his previous statement about not going in Alana’s room. I pushed myself forward, moving in what felt like slow motion. I saw that some of the doctors and nurses were talking to each other in hushed voices and then walking away. Their Squips glowed so bright that they hurt my eyes as I walked up closer to them.

 

      The doctors and nurses outside of Alana’s room were talking to each other and to their Squips, some of them had gotten out cell phones and were complaining about them going off and then turned them off and shoved them back in their pockets. A couple of doctors were arguing with each other in loud tones, and the nurses only seemed to be egging them on. All at once, I understood why Mom didn’t always like coming into work.

 

     My chest felt like someone was pressing down on it, and I could feel it getting harder and harder to breathe. I wanted to freeze up and just stop, but something was pushing me forwards. I wasn’t sure if Connor had changed something about my mind, but I was able to move and walk. The doctors and nurses that were standing outside of Alana’s door were finally let into the room, and I felt my breath catch in my throat again. My heart was in my mouth as I followed the hospital personnel into the hospital room, as I hoped that no one would notice me.

 

     _Make sure to move out of everyone’s way, and go to the corner that Jared was in before._ Connor ordered lightly, and I sidestepped into the corner. I saw that Alana’s family, Zoe and Jared weren’t in the room, and I distantly wondered why. I crouched down in the corner and I tried to steady my breathing as I watched what was happening with Alana. She was perfectly still and quiet, but the machines that she was hooked up to weren’t.

 

     _Did the Squip inside her head, the malware, move to the machines?_ I guessed, hoping that I was wrong. I watched as many hospital Squips tried to figure out what was going on, but to no avail. I could tell that Connor was trying to figure out what was going on, too, he seemed distant in the back of my head. _Is that right? What does that even mean?_

_You are right._ Connor sounded amazed and horrified, his voice almost caught on the last syllable of the word ‘right’. I could feel that Connor was trying to help my anxiety, I felt numb again. This time, I wasn’t going to fight it. I needed the help, I just wish I would have taken my dumb pills. _I don’t know what this means, other than whatever the Squip was supposed to do has been done. Which means that it’s looking for a new host, just like the worms Stuxnet and Mydoom._

_What task was it supposed to accomplish?_ The question needed to be asked, but I asked it with a nervous and tentative tone. I bit my lip and let out a shaky breath from my nose, even though I knew that I shouldn’t. I looked at the doctors who were almost swarmed around Alana, they each had out their Squip and their voices each layered over one another. They made the headache in my brain feel worse, but the fear in my veins was keeping me from succumbing to my headache.

 

     _I have an idea._ Connor sounded more distant than ever, and I could tell that he was doing something important. I felt bad that we couldn’t move closer to Alana, but the distance between her and where I was sitting wasn’t too bad. I figured that Connor could probably bridge the gap pretty effectively.

 

     _Have you found anything yet?_ I asked, it had been a couple of seconds since Connor had told me that he had an idea. How long was it going to take him to execute this idea? Because it felt like an awfully long time to me, maybe that was because I had nothing else to do but worry. And I was doing a great job of that. _Is something wrong? Sometime major?_

Finally, after a long period of silence and mounting fear, Connor spoke.

 

      _Hansen, I think that Alana might be braindead._ Connor’s voice was quiet and in awe. It was the sick, horrible awe of death.

I stopped breathing for a second, trying to let everything sink in. My lungs cried out for air, and I finally took in a gasp of breath and let it out at a steady pace that would allow me to get oxygen and steady my breathing. I could hear the doctors talking and arguing, and the sound of someone running out of the room. I could also hear footsteps walking towards me, but I felt just as useless and distant as I did the night Alana got shot.

 

     It wasn’t the bullet that killed her. It was a computer program.

 

* * *

 

Seconds turned into minutes, and someone finally found me in the corner of the room.

 

     The nurse recognized me from my mother, and tried to see if I was okay. I can’t remember exactly what happened after that, everything that I can remember just happened in bursts and flashes of memory. The nurse walked with me down to a breakroom, and told me to sit. I sat down and ignored Connor talking in my ear. I steadied my breathing as I laid my head down onto the table, and when I pulled my head back up, the sky outside was dark and I was breathing normally again.

 

    Then everything came crashing back. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life, and I let out a choked cry, but no one was around to hear me, or to check if I was okay. I tried to cry, but there was nothing left in my body. I needed water, and I needed a nap and to sit down and figure out what had just happened. I hugged myself as I drifted out of the room that I had been sitting in and walked down the hallway.

 

     My backpack was still back in Alana’s room, but I felt a small vibration from my pocket and I pulled out my cellphone. The screen was marred with warnings and notices about missed calls and texts that I had to check, every single text was in caps-lock, but my brain was so exhausted that I couldn’t string the words together into a coherent sentence or phrase.

 

    I didn’t try to reach out to Connor, there was nothing that he could tell me that I didn’t already know, or that I wasn’t about to find out on my own. I sighed and followed a random direction just because it felt right. I wasn’t sure why I was being tugged a certain way, but I hoped that it was because things were about to get even just a little bit better than they were right now.

 

     I turned a corner and I came across an odd room that I had never seen before. It had a few run-down couches and chairs in it, with a carpet that looked old and trampled, but most strange was a large window the seemed to take up the entire wall that I was facing. The glass was perfectly cleaned, it was almost as if it was cleaned every single hour to clean away stray and unwanted fingerprints and smudges.

 

    And, sitting on the floor in front of the window with her legs tucked under her, was Zoe Murphy.

 

     My heart stopped beating for a second, I wasn’t sure that I was ready to face anyone right now. But, as I watched her look out over the starry night sky as the moonlight illuminated her hair, I could see that maybe she needed me here more than I could possibly fathom. I stepped onto the carpet of the room, but Zoe didn’t hear me and she didn’t turn around. Her hands were folded in her lap and every time she moved even the slightest bit her hair shifted, too.

 

     “Zoe?” I called out in a tiny voice, and she turned around to look at me. A look of pain and confusion was on her face, and it broke my heart. I walked closer to her, and she didn’t do anything as I bridged the gap between our bodies.

 

     “You’ve heard, I’m guessing?” Zoe’s voice was so broken and cracked I was surprised that she could even speak. I sat down next to her, trying my hardest to remember a time before Connor had killed himself, back when life was simpler and none of my friends were dead. A time when I didn’t have friends. “I guess that I should be crying right now, but I just feel so tired. It’s like I can’t accept that she’s really dead.”

 

     “That’s the first stage of grief.” I said as I looked out over the skyline of Joliet. I scooted just a little bit closer to Zoe, and we were sitting just mere centimeters apart now. “But I think that we’re all feeling the same way. It’s like some kind of bad dream where nothing ever gets better. God, and just to think that my biggest problem a little over a week ago was writing an essay on the chaos theory for my math teacher.”

 

     “It’s funny how life changes so fast.” Zoe shifted so that her knees were propped out in front of her, while she sat on her butt. She buried her face in her knees and wrapped her arms around her head. “I just want everything to go back. I don’t want this to be my life anymore. I just want to be a normal high school Junior, this life that I’m living right now isn’t what I thought it would be.”

 

     I didn’t know what to say to that. I set my gaze out over Joliet, as I wondered how many people in the city had ever met Alana. Would they miss her? Would they miss her smile, the way that her laugh sounded like music? Or would they forget her, just like how they had forgotten Connor? A pit built in my stomach, and I realized that I knew exactly what I say.

 

     “Life rarely ever is what we think it will be.” I watched as an airplane crossed from one side of the window to the other. I felt a weight on my left side, and I almost jumped out of my skin, until I saw Zoe leaning on me again. My heart constricted as I thought about how messed up it was that we were getting so close because of the death of a friend. Why did death have to bring something good? Death was bad, it took people away from us. Guilt for using Alana’s death to my advantage filled me.

 

     “I just want things to get better soon.” Zoe whispered. She sounded like me just a couple of hours ago, and I felt the need to laugh bitterly. The world wasn’t on our side, it was going to burn us, play us, and when it had had its laughs, we were going to die. There was nothing else to say, life wasn’t going to let us go until it had had all of its fun. “Promise me you won’t leave me. I need someone to help me through this, and all I have is you and Jared now.”

 

     “I promise I won’t leave.” I replied, putting my arm around her shoulder as we watched the skyline of the city change colors, until almost all of the lights were dimmed as all of the citizens of Joliet retired to their beds for the evening.

 

* * *

 

 

     At some point, we must have fallen asleep. I don’t remember what had happened, but I woke up to the feeling of moving, and I realized that my shoulder was being jolted awake. Oxygen ripped from my lungs as I pushed my eyes open, looking for the person who was woken me up. My eyes met Jared’s, and confusion grew in my mind.

 

     “Jesus, Evan, calm down, would you?” Jared growled at me in a low voice as he continued to carry me. The pressure from headaches had subsided in my head, and I was left with an imprint of pain, nothing but a ghost. But, somehow, that brought just as much pain. I let my body relax. “Zoe is okay, and so is Alana’s family. You were the last person that hadn’t gone home for the night, so I’m taking you home.”

 

     “Home.” I said in a content voice, and I gazed around the entrance to the hospital again. Jared looked at me like he was my older brother, and I forced my leg muscles to support my weight as I stood up.

 

     “I’m guessing you can walk yourself to my car?” Jared asked, but it wasn’t much of a question. His tone wasn’t as acidic as usual, in fact there was nothing behind it. Nothing about his tone showed any emotion. I felt bad for him, why hadn’t I thought that this was going to be hard on him, too? He was Alana’s friend too. No, he _had been_ Alana’s friend too. “Your arm is broken, not your legs.”

 

     I nodded silently and followed Jared out of the hospital. I had no idea what time it was, but it didn’t really matter. As I walked into the night, I could almost feel taste rain and feel it on my skin. I raised my head wearily to the sky as the light from the moon fell onto my face, giving me a halo of moonlight on my blonde hair. I breathed a long sigh as I prayed for rain, it made sense that rain would fall right now.

 

     Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. I stopped walking, and I fell behind Jared’s brisk walking pace. He seemed determined to get to his car and get home, but I was more worried about the movement that I had seen. Fear hadn’t bubbled up, but rather intrigue and wonder. The moonlight glinted off of windshields and car mirrors, so maybe that was why I saw it. But I know what I saw.

 

     Alana, semi-opaque like a Squip, and with large, delicate angel wings dwarfing her small form, stood on the sidewalk outside of the hospital. She was smiling at me, but when I took a step towards her, she held up a hand to signal me to stop. I tried to stop tears from coming, because there was no way that what I was seeing was real. I could feel my chest constrict, but a sense of calm filled me.

 

     Then, just as soon as she had appeared, she was gone. I whipped my head around to see if Jared had seen her, but he was sitting in his car. When our eyes met, he beckoned me angrily, he clearly just wanted to go home. I looked back at where Alana had been standing longingly, but she wasn’t coming back. Somewhere in my heart, I knew that that was the last that I’d ever see of Alana Beck.

 

     I walked over to Jared’s car, and I got in the passenger’s seat and buckled my seatbelt mechanically. I let my head fall back against the headrest, I just wanted to sleep and be at home right now.

 

     “What did you see just now?” Jared asked as he turned the car on and activated the windshield wipers. I could hear the sound of rain just starting to fall onto the roof, and the first drops were just starting to spatter against the safety glass of the windshield. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

 

     “Yeah, something like that, I think.” I muttered as I stared off into space.

 

     Jared grunted in acknowledgement, and we spent the rest of the carried to my house in silence. The clouds continued to cry for Alana, and it felt fitting that they should cry. Part of me wondered where Zoe was, but the other part of me knew that she could take care of herself. Chances were that she was either asleep or talking to her mother, who was no doubt having a lot of trouble taking in everything that had happened.

 

     When I got to my house, Jared and I exchanged good-byes, and I ran into my house as fast as I could to be in the rain as little as possible. Once I got inside, I noticed that Mom was home, her shoes were sitting at the door. The reporters were all gone, someone must have told them that I was mourning or something. Or, maybe they had found another story. I didn’t care, as long as they were gone. I stumbled up to my room, trying to reach out to Connor again as I walked.

 

      As soon as I was in my bed, the sound of the rain lulled me into a perfect, dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little confession from me: I've only been in hospitals a handful of times, and most of them I was too young to really remember anything. So, if my portrayal of them seemed wrong, blame Sherlock and Supernatural, because that is I know most of the stuff about hospitals.  
> But, for real, this chapter was really hard for me to write. I guess that aiming for 17 chapters was too little for what I wanted to really accomplish, and I had to put a lot of character development and angst into a single chapter, and it was just really exhausting. This story is pushing me to my limits, and I love it!  
> Not only that, but I really didn't want to kill of Alana. She's awesome, as I've said before, and I just really didn't want to kill her.
> 
> Thank you again to anyone and everyone who has read or left a comment or kudos on this story! The positive feedback is amazing, thank you so much!
> 
> . . . Sorry if I made you cry.


	16. High School Is A Two Player Game (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is back to normal for Evan, Zoe, Jared and Connor - well, almost normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm so sorry about how late this chapter is.  
> I know, I know I should have gotten this out on the Internet sooner.  
> In my defense, no one ever told me that school gets really hard when you're a 3rd year. I guess I just thought that everything would be the same as last year, but. . . Yep, nope.  
> Haha, I guess I can't complain. I'm doing well in my classes, and I made some new friends, and I'm working on more writing projects right now (one of them is for RWBY, the other is for Camp Camp).  
> I'm currently running on -6 hours of sleep, so this chapter was edited in less than 20 mins, so excuse the excessive amount of grammatical errors that are probably all over the place in this.  
> If you're in school like me, I wish you the best of luck. If you aren't in school right now, I envy you you lucky bastard.  
> *falls over and dozes off*  
> Enjoy!

“Wake up!”

 

     “Ah!” I sat up in my bed, my eyes darted from side to side as I struggled to find out who was talking to me and why. My eyes finally landed on the form of Connor, who was standing next to my bed and leaning over me at normal human height. It was slightly worrisome to see him at full height again, something had to be wrong. “Why did you feel the need to wake up me up like that, Connor?”

 

     “Because you weren’t responding to anything else I tried.” Connor shrugged and shrunk back to being a little over a foot tall and sat on my shoulder. I propped up my knees and leaned my body weight against them as I let out a long sigh. Images from last night flashed across my brain, it was like they were superimposed there forever. I could remember pain, a car ride and Alana. “Did you sleep alright? No nightmares, I hope?”

 

     “I can’t really remember.” I said, astonished by the words that I was speaking. Nightmares had been a regular occurrence for the past three nights, but now it was like someone had just flicked the switch from ‘nightmares’ to ‘no nightmares’. I was grateful, being able to sleep without waking up in a cold sweat or screaming out something incoherent was nice. “I just remember darkness, and a pressure leaving my head. God, why does my head feel so _good?”_

“About your head. . .” Connor trailed off, and I raised an eyebrow at him. What had he done this time? Was it some sort of weird Squip thing, or was it my own doing? Should I be worried? Because I had gotten a full night’s sleep, I was ready to worry and panic. “So, you know that worm? Well, you _might_ have had it in your head for a while, heh. You have also been in a mini-coma for the last two days because I was trying to get the worm out of your head. Surprise.”

 

     I ran a hand through my hair, trying to think of my options for reacting to this news. I could yell at Connor for thinking that this was even remotely funny and for putting me in danger, I could ask about my own health and demand that he never do anything like bring malware capable of killing someone into my head again, but right now I just wanted to panic and let my anxiety take over while Connor tried to explain himself. It was what he deserved.

 

     “You could have killed me!” I screeched as my hands clawed into my head. I stared at Connor with wide eyes, and a little whimper snuck out from my throat. Connor gave me an awkward half-smile and a shrug. I wanted nothing more than to slap him, or to make him understand how much I was freaking out right now. “How can you just smile, Connor? I could have _died!_ Do you have idea how bad that would have been? God, do you have any concept of anything?”

 

     “Well, that’s not all.” Connor laced his fingers together and chewed his lip thoughtfully. He opened his mouth to talk again, when he flickered and cast his eyes over to my door, which promptly opened. I cast my eyes over to the door as soon as I saw Connor do so, and I could hear the faint sounds of movement, but my head felt like someone had stuffed it with cotton balls, so I could be wrong about hearing something. A moment later, my mother stormed into my room, running over to me to give me a hug.

 

     “Evan!” My mom wrapped her arms around my torso, pulling me close as she showed me just how much she missed me. She was almost shaking as she hugged me, and I wrapped my arms around her to let her know that I was here for her, and I was alive. I let my muscles relax and I let the stress and worries fall away. She stopped hugging me and cupped my face in her hands. “Oh, my little boy! My _brave_ little boy, you’ve been through so much! How are you doing sweetie, tell me everything!!”

 

     “I’m fine, Mom.” I said, meaning my words. I had had Connor around, I didn’t really need my mom around, though I guess that it would have been nice to have her around. Tears built up in the corners of her eyes, and I wanted to hug her again. She sat down on the edge of my bed, and she held my hand. “To be honest, the last week hasn’t been as hard on me as it could have been. I made it through, but I still have a lot of healing left to do.”

 

    I could remember Connor telling me that healing takes time, and that it couldn’t all just be done over the course of a few days, or even a week. It would take time for me to stop having nightmares, it would take time for me to gain back the trust in other people that I had lost, it would take time to look at the world around me with the childlike innocence that I had once had had. I was sure that Mom had gone through the same thing after my dad left, but she hadn’t had a friend die on her.

 

     The pain that we had gone through was so close, yet so far away.

 

     “It’s _not_ fine, Evan.” Mom sighed, and a couple of tears ran down her face and fell onto her lap. Connor phased into nothingness, and I felt the weight of him in the back of my mind become a little bit heavier. A head rush came with that weight, but I blinked quickly and tried to fight through it. “I should have been there for you. And I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you, that was what you deserved. But, I’m here now, and I need you to know that if you ever need to talk, I’m here.”

 

     “Thank you.” I smiled lightly, I didn’t trust myself to say anything else, or else I would break down crying. I really didn’t want that, I had to show Mom that I was okay. That I wasn’t going to break down and let the bad parts of the world get to me. “I guess that it’s been tough with everything going on. I just don’t understand everything that’s happened lately, Zoe told me that there were some things happening with SquipTech.”

 

      “You and your friends released a lot of documents that showed some really unethical business tactics.” Mom said, unlacing her hand from mine and lacing her own fingers together. “Not only the things with playing with human-like AI, but using Squips for spying and espionage. And not just business espionage, there were a few instances where SquipTech worked for governments to take down rebellions or kill political dissidents. They’ve been buying out politicians to try to see if they could have Squips implanted at birth in every single human being.”

 

     “So, they’re doing exactly what every anti-Squip group has been accusing them of doing for years?” I cocked my head to the side, it was hard to believe that that was really going on. Rumors about bad things that SquipTech had done were commonplace on the Internet and in any real-world conversation. It was normal to hear rumors, but it was strange that now these rumors had something to back them with. “That’s kind of creepy to think about.”

 

     “It is.” Mom nodded, and she ran her left hand through her hair. “So, that’s exactly why I got rid of Annie. I really couldn’t deal with the idea that she was spying on me, she was one of my best friends. Which, I see now, is something that they wanted. You have to be trusted by the people who you lie to, so that when they turn their back on you, you’ll have the chance to stab them in the back. And, making Squips that people care about is one of the ways that SquipTech can divert suspicion.”

 

     “That’s. . .” I searched for words, but I couldn’t find anything to say. Part of me wanted to say that SquipTech was smart, however they were using their intelligence to screw people over and betray their trust, so smart wasn’t the right word. It was horrible what they were doing. They had no regard for the human lives that they were tampering with. “Horrible. I guess that I’m glad that we caught it.”

 

     “So is the rest of the world.” Mom reached out and squeezed my shoulder. She smiled at me, but it was a sad and knowing smile. She understood what I had given up, and she knew that nothing was going to be the same in my life ever again. “I know that the price that you paid for that information was one that you wish you didn’t have to deal with, but you can’t change the past.”

 

     “At least there was a reason Alana died.” I whispered, not sure if now was the right time to say that Alana had died for something. She had died to get information out to the world. It was a worthy cause to die for, even if it did leave a hole in all of the hearts of all of the people she knew. “I just hope that she knows what she did. And I also hope that Connor will stop being the subject of so many debates. He’s not a threat.”

 

     “I don’t doubt that he’s not a threat, Evan.” Mom spoke softly and deliberately, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. What was she playing at? “But, I think that we have to give him to the proper authorities. It’ll just look bad on our part if we don’t comply, these people are there to protect us, and I’m sure that they won’t hurt Connor. I just don’t think that keeping him around is making things better. It’s better to just turn him over to the authorities and allow them to deal with him.”

 

    “Let me get this straight,” I cocked my eyebrow and rummaged through my memories helplessly, “You aren’t mad about me not telling you that I had a dead kid as my Squip, and you think that we should just hand him over to the authorities? Without asking what he wants first?”

 

     “I am a little bit let down that you didn’t tell me about Connor right away.” Mom admitted, and I could see that she was covering up her emotions. It was almost like she _had_ to stay calm and try to convince me that I had to get rid of Connor. “But I understand why you didn’t tell me. I respect that, but I don’t like the idea of Connor sticking around. As long as he is with you, you’re in danger, not to mention the large number of hackers and reporters that are going to shadow you. It’s time to let him go.”

 

     “So, you think that I should just get rid of him?” My eyes got wide, and I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach. Didn’t my mom understand that it wasn’t that simple, I couldn’t just give up on my friend. I wasn’t just going to give him up without a fight. Part of me still felt as is if he was the only thing I had left. “Just ‘let him go’? I can’t do that, we’re friends. I can’t just give up on him, I can live with people following me around if it means that he’s safe.”

 

     “Evan, you’ve always thought of other people before yourself, but this has to stop.” Mom’s voice was now firm, and it felt so _wrong._ Weren’t people supposed to care about each other? Couldn’t Mom see that this was my way of showing Connor that I cared about him, and not betraying my friends? “Connor is a danger to your future, you cannot be labeled as a young man, and then grown man, who has a damaged AI as a Squip.”

 

     “Mom, you’re wrong.” My throat was scratchy, and I could feel tears biting at the back of my eyes, but I wasn’t going to back down just yet. What I had to say had to be said, and I wasn’t going to back down. “Connor isn’t a damaged AI, he’s never been that. And I care about him like a brother, I can’t even imagine a life without him in it. I’m not going to leave him behind, I can’t leave him behind.”

 

     My mom sighed and looked at me with a look I couldn’t decipher. She looked almost ashamed and worried, but it was something more than that. She closed her eyes for a second as she tried to think of what to say next, but part of me knew that she wasn’t going to force me to give up Connor just yet. She understood what being a rebellious teenager was like, she had been a very rebellious one when she was my age. But, she also knew that this was her fault.

 

     She hadn’t spent enough time with her son, and now he preferred a computer program – one that was technically considered contraband, at that – over her.

 

     I could only imagine how much that stung, and I felt bad for it, but I knew that I couldn’t just give in. I wouldn’t give in. I’d lost one friend already, and I wasn’t going to lose another one. I knew that no one expected me to just give Connor up without a fight, but I wondered in the back of my mind how far they thought that I was willing to go? Make a deal with someone shady to keep Connor safe? Break laws? (Well, to be fair, I had purchased stolen military tech off of the Dark Web to keep Connor safe, so maybe they had a reason to worry about the lengths I’d go to.)

 

     “You’re going to be late for school if you don’t get ready right now.” Mom sighed, getting up from my bed and walking out of my room. Her tone was defeated, and I watched as she just walked away from me. I wanted to call her back and say something to make things better, but the only thing that would make things better would be giving in and leaving my friend to the wills of people in high places of power. “Have a good day at school, Evan.”

 

     My mom closed the door behind her, and the sound of the door closing seemed to end any hope of making her emotions feel less battered and destroyed. Connor appeared on my shoulder, and I moved my body around so that I could hug my knees to my chest. I sighed and pushed back tears as I thought about going back to school. Because of everything that had happened, school had been the last thing on my mind for the past couple of weeks.

 

     After Alana was shot, the principal had told me that he wanted Zoe, Jared and I back in school by the next calendar week, no exceptions. Then Alana had died, and I hadn’t heard anything from him since then. It might have been because I had been in a mini coma, thanks to Connor. Or, maybe the principal was so worried about getting attacked by the ‘damaged AI’ that everyone liked to pretend that Connor was.

 

     “I guess I should get ready for school, huh?” I smiled and threw myself out of my bed. Based on the fact that it was pretty light outside, I didn’t think I had much time for a shower. Connor, who hadn’t been thrown off of my body when I got up, looked at me expectantly for a second. I could see the question he wanted to ask was right on the tip of his tongue.

 

     “You want me to go if you’re going to get dressed?” Connor asked, but there wasn’t any kind of emotion behind his words. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, but I knew that he would tell me eventually. I nodded at his request, and Connor was out of sight less than a second later.

 

     I tried to shake off the talk that my mom and I had had while I threw my shirt off and over my shoulders. I rummaged through my clothes, and I settled on wearing a light blue shirt with little green trees all over it. It was really soft, and it was pretty much a ready-made security blanket in the form of a t-shirt. I pulled it over my shoulders and I threw on a pair of jeans that were on the bottom shelf of my chest of drawers, and I moved to my mirror and I began to mess with my hair for a second.

 

     I took my pajamas and set them down gently in my laundry basket, reminding myself that I had to do my laundry soon. Before I left my room, I picked up Connor’s hoodie from the floor and I donned it without a second thought. I didn’t know if Connor was weirded out by me wearing his old clothes, but it made me feel safe. Plus, my old hoodie was starting to get very worn out. I loved it, yes, but I wasn’t sure that it would survive another couple of days. Much less another stress filled day of high school.

 

     “You’ve gotten better at getting yourself dressed quickly.” Connor commented, any traces of emotional instability from before were gone. He was dressed in a light blue shirt, with black everything else. I wasn’t sure if he knew that he was dressing differently since he had met me, and I wondered if I was picking up some of his habits, too. “That’s nice, since you are currently on the path of running late for class. And, your first period teacher will _not_ be happy if you don’t show up again.”

 

     “Why didn’t you warn me before?” I cried, running down to the kitchen. I threw an apple, a water bottle and a ready-made peanut and jelly sandwich into my backpack, which was hanging up on the hook next to the door. I suspected that I’d have to just skip breakfast, which sucked, but I could manage without it. “Okay, I can still work with this whole thing.”

 

     “You’re not going to have breakfast?” Connor raised an eyebrow at me, but I was too busy tying my shoes and worrying about getting to school on time to think about eating breakfast. My right shoe was tied perfectly on my foot, and I could feel Connor’s presence on my shoulder become heavier somehow as I started tying my other shoe. “Hansen, you haven’t eaten in _two days._ You cannot just go without food again before you run to school.”

 

      I rolled my eyes and ran to the cupboard to find a package of ramen, which I promptly threw into my bag along with a couple of granola bars. I then put another apple in my bag. My plan was pretty simple: bring food so that I could eat it periodically throughout the day to make Connor happy and to make sure that he wouldn’t yell at me and tell me that I needed to do this or do that to take care of myself.

 

      “Better?” I asked, already running out the door. I didn’t know where my mom was, but I didn’t care to call out that I was leaving. I didn’t know what it was, but some little voice in the back of my head told me that was a bad idea. I listened to the voice as I stepped outside, only to be met with more reporters and tech junkies. “This isn’t good.”

 

     “Nope.” Connor agreed, and then teleported away from me. I cringed when I realized that I was on my own again, but the reporters didn’t all run up to meet me this time. There were only about fifty of them today, unlike the hundreds that had been standing outside of my house a few days ago. I chose to think of this as good news, people were beginning to stop caring about Evan Hansen and his teenage friends.

 

     “Evan, how are you adjusting to the death of Alana Beck?” One reporter, a woman in her twenties, called out as she pointed her microphone in my direction. Everyone else’s heads perked up at her question, and they all seized their pencils and readied themselves to write down any and all of the words that I would answer with.

 

     Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew that Connor was manipulating my emotions. I wanted to break down right now, how could someone just so obviously speak about Alana’s death without knowing her? Without knowing all of the good things that she’d done, the good things that she wanted to keep doing, but couldn’t do. I bit my tongue, hard, as I tried to make myself keep walking forwards towards school.

 

     The other reporters followed me, and they didn’t stop following me, but they soon became background noise. I couldn’t piece their words together, and I refused to speak to them. They were going to _make money_ off of my talking about my dead friend. That realization alone left a sour taste in my mouth. After a while, the reporters stopped following me, like children who stopped following their parent around begging for toys or candy.

 

     I was on autopilot as I walked to school. After meeting with the reporters, I was suddenly not worried about getting to school on time. As I passed by the park where I had gotten shot, I remembered the ghost of the pain that I had felt in my arm. I wondered if now that I had pretty much taken down an entire corporation if people would want to sign my cast. It would be strange to have anyone’s name other than Connor’s on my cast.

 

     _Hey, are you okay, Hansen?_ Connor asked quietly. His voice was tentative, and it sounded like he was walking on eggshells, and I wondered why. He was inside my head, he could tell how I was feeling, right? Maybe he was just trying to be nice and ask, because he thought that might make me feel better. _I can only imagine that dealing with those idiots back there wasn’t fun, but you handled it well._

_Handling is all I’m doing._ I stopped walking, looking at the school in front of me. I was less than a block away, and I could see a few students here and there dotting the front lawn as they ran to class in a desperate attempt to not be late for first period. _I’m not moving forwards, and I don’t know if that is good or not. I should be trying to heal, right? But I don’t want to forget about Alana, and I also don’t want to keep feeling like I’m going to break down every single time someone says her name aloud._

_That takes time. Which I know is something you don’t like to hear._ Connor almost laughed, but he held himself back. He had somehow gotten more and more animated and laughed and chuckled more since he had become my Squip. I wanted to be happy for him, but I was too drained right now to even entertain that thought. _You’ll get there eventually, but you just have to wait it out. One day, you’ll be able to look back on all of this and gain strength from remembering the way that you just walked into school without fearing anything. Today is not that day, so you just have to keep pressing forwards right now._

_I guess I really have no choice but to just keep moving forwards, or else I’ll get knocked clean off the playing board._ I could tell that Connor was confused by my chess metaphor, and I wondered if he had ever played the game. I had learned from my dad’s parents when I was a kid, but no one else that I had ever met played the game. Who wanted to play a game of skill and cunning when there were violent video games? _I guess that I’ll just have to get through school today. But, I have you and Zoe and Jared, so today can’t be too bad, right?_

 

     _Let’s hope that Jared doesn’t spend too much time with you, or else I’m going to just log off and never come back._ Connor’s threat was something that I knew he could carry through with. He was the kind of person to follow through on his threats, and not spending time with Jared was something that he really liked. I scoffed good-naturedly and started back towards the school.

 

     _Please don’t, I’m going to need you around all day._ I begged lightly, there was a chuckle in my tone. I picked up my pace as I walked across the lawn in front of Joliet High School, and up the stairs. It was nice to be back after being gone for so long. Maybe now, things could go back to normal.

 

     “You’re late!” Was the first thing that my ears picked up on when I walked into the school. I looked to where the noise was coming from, and I was met with Zoe. She was leaning up against the wall, with her arms cross across her chest. Rose wasn’t hovering over her shoulder, and without her Squip she looked wrong here at school. “And where were you the past two days?”

 

     A small smirk spread across Zoe’s face as she watched me walk towards her. She was wearing her hair down and it fell down her shoulders in a perfect sheet. Her shirt was a simple black scoop neck without any embellishments. Her jeans had been deliberately ripped a couple of places, but I like to think that maybe she had climbed a fence and fallen and gotten the rips and tears that way. Her light grey hoodie completed her outfit, and she took notice of the fact that the hoodie I was wearing was Connor’s.

 

     “I sent him into a mini-coma.” Connor teleported over to Zoe’s shoulder, speaking quietly to her. Zoe’s eyes got big and she looked down at Connor, about ready to scold him when he held up a hand and readied himself to explain the situation and try to get himself out of the hole that he had dug himself in. _“But,_ it wasn’t really my fault. See, the worm that was in Alana’s cybernetics kind of infected me and. . .”

 

     A pregnant silence fell over us at Connor’s words. Anger and amusement fell right out of Zoe’s eyes, and her shoulders drooped and her hands turned into claws and then fists. I walked over to her and placed my right hand on her left arm, and she quietly looked me in the eyes and then turned away from me. I pulled my hand away from her, not sure what I had done wrong.

 

    “Can we. . .” Zoe sighed and bit her lip before turning back to me and grabbing my hand. “C-can we not talk about her? I just. . . I want to remember her for her life, not her death right now. But all I can see is her blood, the way that her face and fingernails drained of all color after she-”

 

     Zoe cut herself off, and her other hand flew up to her mouth. She clenched her eyes shut and she looked like a small child who was trying not to think about or watch the bloody, scary part of a horror movie. Before we had become so close – close enough that Zoe could hold onto my hand without making me blush and sputter – I might have thought that what Zoe was doing was cute. But, now that I knew what she was going through, I couldn’t call it anything but traumatic.

 

     “It’ll get better.” I whispered. Above me, the speaker system played the tone that told any students in the hall that school would start in no less than two minutes. Zoe’s scared eyes found mine, she was in a state where even the bells at school were scary. Having being there before, I knew how it felt, and I wanted to make sure that she knew that it was okay. “Let’s get you to class, huh?”

 

     “Thank you.” Zoe choked out, and then lead me to her class. We walked the whole way there, watching as other students broke rules and ran in the halls to get to their classes before the bell rang and they were considered late. After thirty seconds of walking, Zoe and I came up to her classroom. She gave me one last smile before running to her first period class.

 

    My heart beat faster, and I realized that maybe – just maybe – Zoe might feel something for me like what I felt for her.

 

     And my heart soared.

 

* * *

 

 

Time has passed since that day.

 

     Assignments were turned in late. Hall passes were acquired. Rendezvous in the hallways during a breakdown were perpetrated. People crowded around Jared, Zoe and I whenever they could. They offered their ‘condolences’ and asked if maybe we wanted to go and hang out after school. We turned them down right away, even when people who we had been somewhat close to offered.

 

     Finally, two weeks passed since coming back to school. Everything seemed like it was okay again, but I guess that it was just a set up for what was coming next.

 

* * *

 

 

“I hope that we’re allowed to be here right now.”

 

     Jared’s voice and my footsteps were the only sounds in the computer lab as I walked in. I had run out of my math class early, yet Zoe and Jared had still beaten me to the computer lab. We ate lunch together every single day now, we couldn’t stand the way that the lunch room was so crowded, noisy and filled with ‘admirers’ who wanted to know all about us and ‘hang out after school’. Suddenly, Jared, Zoe and I had become the most popular students in school because everyone wanted to pretend they were friends with us.

 

     In the two weeks since coming back to school after Alana’s death, many things had changed. Many students had actively turned off their Squips, and many were having theirs removed. Of course, this became nothing more than a fad after celebrities started to join in with the idea that Squips were nothing but high-tech spying tools. I had also gotten a killer headache that seemed to never stop pounding at my temples. It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my head again and again. Connor had tried to figure out the cause, but he had become distant since Alana’s death.

 

     I stifled a sigh and tried to not think about Connor. He didn’t want to talk to me, and he was spending an increasing amount of time logged off and away from Zoe, Jared and I. It was unsettling, yes, but I knew that everyone coped with loss in a different way. Connor’s way was to shut down and try to run away from his problems, and there was nothing wrong with that. I pushed Connor out of my thoughts and focused back on Zoe.

 

    “Why wouldn’t we be able to be here right now, Jared?” Zoe squinted as she tried to see Jared’s logic, but she couldn’t seem to see it. I paid no mind to Jared’s words, I just continued to pull my lunch out of my lunchbox slowly. The chronic headache that had seemed to plague me since Alana’s death – since Connor had allowed a malicious worm in my head – had come back again. “Who would possibly kick us out? Mrs Parpart? She loves us. Well, she loves Evan and I.”

 

     “Zoe Murphy, are you implying that I am not loveable?” Jared pressed a hand to his chest as he mocked surprise and pain in his face and voice. A large grin spread across his face as Zoe rolled her eyes and scoffed at Jared’s comment. “I’ll have you know that I am currently the most sought-after guy at Joliet High School. I credit it to my dashing good looks and amazing charm, wouldn’t you say?”

 

     I chuckled to lightly to myself as I took a bite of my sandwich that I had made for myself this morning. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches had been my go-to food item all the way back from Sophomore year, and I still hadn’t ceased loving them. Zoe was eating a healthy salad and Jared had just taken the top off of Tepper Ware full of what looked like spaghetti, but smelled like hot dogs from where I was sitting. Most of the food that Jared’s sister made for him defied explanation.

 

     “I think that the more probable explanation is that all of the girls in this school are just idiots.” Zoe shoved a forkful of salad into her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully as she tried to think of some example of every female student in the school being an idiot. To be honest, they weren’t that hard to find once you started looking. “I mean, you once came to school with your hair in pigtails. Any girl who thinks that that is the kind of person that she wants to date is either trying very, very hard to trick herself or she just wants to get famous. Or both.”

 

     “Hey, my sister did those pigtails and they looked wonderful!” Jared defended avidly and then puffed out his chest. I chuckled, it was endearing to see how much Jared care for his little sister. She insisted on making lunch for him every day, and every day he’d walk into the computer lab with either a horrendously undercooked meal, or a miserably overcooked one. “And girls love guys with hearts, and nothing shows heart more than your little sister doing your hair!”

 

     “Just keep telling yourself that, Jared.” Connor shrugged, his tone was unhelpful and amused. He looked like this whole conversation was making him very happy, and a smirk was painted across his face. Although hearing him talk was nice, it caused the pain in my head to spike, and I just wanted to go lay down and take a nap. “And why don’t you come to school with pigtails more often? I’m sure that you’d make everyone just _smile_ with delight.”

 

     “All jokes aside, I think it’s nice that your sister wants to do your hair in the morning.” I interjected quickly before anything could happen. I doubted that Jared would try to physically hurt Connor – he was nothing more than a hologram to him, after all – but I still didn’t want to chance anything. “I mean, it’s adorable that she makes you lunches, too. You two seem like you’ve gotten a lot closer since you got full custody over her.”

 

     “Yeah, we’ve gotten a lot closer.” Jared smiled, and I could tell that it was a real smile. He only smiled like that when he talked about Ella, she was the best part of Jared’s life. He had photos of her up in his locker, and he had already signed all of the necessary papers to bar her from getting a Squip. He had become somewhat overprotective of Zoe and I as a result of taking close care of a younger sibling, too. “She’s going to star in her school play next week! I’m so proud!”

 

     “Who is she playing?” I asked, a smile spread across my face. I had met Ella a few times, Jared had invited Zoe and I over so that she could meet us. Ella was a sweet girl who looked like a younger, female version of Jared. They seemed to understand each other on an unspoken level, and as an only child I didn’t fully understand it. “Didn’t you say the play was a fairytale? Cinderella, right?”

 

     “Yeah, she’s playing Cinderella.” Jared laughed, and his eyes lit up with pride and happiness. “I keep joking about how alike their names are, and she thinks that it is pretty cool, too. She thinks that she was born to pay the role of Cinderella. It’s adorable.”

 

     “Connor played Tinkerbell in a play in elementary school once.” Zoe smugly looked over at Connor, whose cheeks promptly heated up and eyes got wide. Connor turned to Zoe and Zoe, Jared and I broke out in laughter at the idea of young Connor prancing around a stage at school as Tinkerbell during a production of _Peter Pan._ Zoe was hardly able to talk through her laughter. “He even wore the dress and the tights and everything! We have it on home video, it’s the greatest thing ever!”

 

     “I thought we agreed to never speak of that?” Connor growled at Zoe. His voice was low and he tried to cover up the fact that he was blushing. I giggled at him, and he glared at me and I stopped laughing right away. I was still smiling softly as Connor glared at Zoe and Jared, but his look of aggression had no effect on them. To them, he was nothing more than just a Squip in someone else’s head. “Maybe you’d like for me to bring up what you did at the family reunion when you were four, Zoe?”

 

     “You wouldn’t dare.” Zoe teased, and my heart exploded. She looked so happy and mischievous, it was so unlike how she had looked for the past two weeks. Slowly but surely, we were all coping with the loss we had suffered and I loved being able to see Zoe smile again. “Unless you _want_ me to tell everyone about what you and our cousin Asher did during Christmas when you were seven?”

 

     “I say you _both_ tell your embarrassing stories, because I think that we all need to hear them.” Jared spoke up, throwing his hand into the air as he talked, as if he were in class and was giving a suggestion to a teacher. After a second of everyone staring at Jared, he pointed at me for a second and began to speak again. “I mean, you can cure my depression and maybe cure Evan’s headache, too. He’s been complaining about it for more than a week now.”

 

      Almost instantly, the headache came back again and I bit my lip to keep from crying out. The wave of pain that I was experiencing right now wasn’t as bad as some of the pain that I had felt before, but it was still bad. I silently cursed myself for having the dumb headache, the headache for existing in the first place, and Jared for bringing up the existence of my headache because I had almost forgotten about it entirely.

 

     “Evan, you still have that headache?” Zoe placed her hand on my arm reassuringly, and her eyes showed that she really cared about my well-being. The mood in the room seemed to shift right away from happy and joking to serious and gloomy. I felt bad that I had had a hand in causing this change, but there wasn’t much that I could do to change it. “Do you or Connor have any idea how to get rid of it? You had that malware in your head before, you should get your head looked at, Evan.”

 

      “I’m sure it’s nothing, I mean it isn’t even that bad.” I brushed off the issue of the headache with a dismissive wave of my hand. The last thing I wanted to go through right now was a doctor’s visit, I’d have to talk my mom again. We hadn’t talked since she had told me to get rid of Connor, and I wasn’t sure how to mend our relationship and I was too afraid to try. “Right, Connor? Nothing to worry about.”

 

      “Hansen speaks the truth.” Connor crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged passively. Zoe relaxed when she heard Connor’s assessment of my state, though she didn’t relax much. I wondered if she had the sneaking suspicion that maybe things weren’t all perfect, but she was wrong. I was just having some trouble coping, and my body was reacting to stress. “The only thing wrong with him is that he doesn’t seem to like any jazz other than jazz band jazz.”

 

     With that last comment, Jared and Zoe began to make jokes about my ‘love of jazz’. When Zoe laughed I felt my heart beat a little bit faster, but I couldn’t really feel the ecstasy that I usually felt when I was around her. I cast my eyes to Connor and I watched him half-heartedly joke around with Jared and Zoe about what was wrong with me. He made small gestures and his voice just didn’t sound like his.

 

     All of the sudden, the bell rang over the loudspeaker, and Zoe shot up from her chair like a panicked student who had forgotten some assignment that they would then desperately try to do in the couple of minutes before class started. Jared lazily drew his body up from where he was sitting at the sound of the bell, he had gym class next so he could be late to it and no one would care. I had a study hall next, so I understood his want to go slow to my next class.

 

     “Crap, I have a physics test!” Zoe shouted as the bell kept on ringing. She shoved her lunch into the bag that she had brought it in and began to quickly move out of the room to get to the science wing on the other side of the school. As she ran, she threw her head over her shoulder and called out apologies and wishes for good days for Jared and I. “Wish me luck on my test!”

 

    “Good luck! You’ll do great!” I called after Zoe as she ran, and she waved at me over her shoulder before she turned the corner and disappeared down a hallway and ran out of sight. It seemed almost silly that I would wish Zoe luck on her test, it wasn’t like she’d need it anyways. She was one of the smartest people that I’d ever met, and she was working on trying to graduate early to go right onto college to study human behavior as a career.

 

     “See you later, Evan.” Jared offered me a small smile as he packed up his lunch and threw it back into his backpack and began the long trek from the computer lab to the gymnasium, which was on the other side of the school, near the science wing. Jared and Zoe usually walked together to their next class, they had become friends since Alana’s death. We were the only people who could really understand each other, we were all we had left. “We still on for playing some World of Warcraft tonight? I have that raid planned.”

 

     “I’ll be sure to log on after I finish my homework.” I smiled back at Jared and he grinned. About a week ago, Jared had let it slip that he played World of Warcraft, an RPG game that was more than a century old. He let me play a little bit of it at his house one night, and I’d been hooked ever since. Zoe teased us about it sometimes, but it was addicting. “I can’t wait to use my new sword to take down some noobs and a few orcs for good measure!”

 

     “See you then!” Jared called from the hallway. I couldn’t see him, but his voice carried well enough that I could hear him perfectly.

 

     With a resigned sigh, I looked at Connor, who was sitting in front of a keyboard of one of the oldest Macs in the whole computer lab. Connor was staring into space and it seemed like he was too engrossed in something that he wasn’t going to look at me and give me his full attention. I knew that I should be getting to class, but I was a senior and I would be graduating soon. It wasn’t like missing one study hall was going to kill me, even though I hated the idea of missing any part of my school day.

 

     “Connor, do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked, and that got Connor’s attention. He looked up at me and his eyes narrowed as he tried to think of what I meant exactly by what was wrong. That made me feel uneasy, if he had to think about what I meant by what was wrong, then that meant that things were worse than I had previously thought. “I don’t understand why you’ve been so distant lately. I mean, I get it, you’re mourning, but I think that something else is wrong. And you need to tell me what’s going on, because it’s starting to take a toll on me, too.”

 

     Connor bit his lip and he ran a nervous hand through his hair. He took in a sharp breath through his nose and let the air out slowly through is mouth a second later. I recognized breathing as something that Connor only did when he was nervous, steadying his breathing was a habit that he had picked up from his human years, and he hadn’t yet dropped it. Finally, Connor turned to me.

 

     “Hansen, the longer the keep me around, the more damage that will come to you.” Connor’s green eyes locked onto mine. His voice didn’t falter, even though it sounded like it wanted to crack and break. “And I know that sounds ‘emo’, or whatever, but it’s true. I don’t think you understand how taxing it is to have a specialized Squip like me in your head while you’re going through a stressful part of your life. Hansen, _I’m_ the reason that you have that headache.”

 

     “What?” I blinked, trying to process Connor’s words was like thinking about something tricky while being sleepy. I tried to wrap my head around his words, was he saying what I thought he was? My headache only seemed to get worse, and I squinted my eyes at the bright lights that covered the ceiling of the computer lap that I hadn’t bothered to leave yet. “Connor, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Are you telling me that you’re intentionally giving me this headache?”

 

     “No, I’m trying to tell you that I’m killing you.” Connor winced at his words, and my eyes got wide. Suddenly, the pounding headache was nothing more than a mild annoyance, and the lights and the feeling stress stopped bothering me. There was something bigger at stake right now than just study hall or getting a good grade in any of my classes. “I know that that’s a lot to take in, but I have a plan of how to stop the damage from becoming worse.”

 

     “Wait, how are you killing me exactly?” Curiosity won out over fear, and I had to know what was going on and why. Surely Connor was joking about killing me. Yeah, I’d had a headache for a while, but it had more to do with the malware than Connor. “You’re not doing anything but normal Squip things, and most human bodies can withstand having a Squip in them. Or am I so different that you cannot be in my head without killing me?”

 

     “I’m a full AI, Hansen.” Connor sounded like he had repeated these words to himself over and over again in his head for hours. Knowing Connor, he probably had because he was worried about how I would react. Thankfully, I had reacted just how he thought I would and I wasn’t making things worse for him. However, I hated being in this place in the first place. “I’m not like other Squips. You aren’t getting enough sleep; your stress level is very high and you just can’t stand having me in your head anymore. But, like I said before, I have a plan.”

 

      “I’ll get more sleep and lower my stress level and eat right, or whatever.” My voice was just a few hairs away from frantic, I wasn’t exactly eager to hear what Connor’s plan was. Knowing him, it would be something elaborate and complicated in some ways, yet banal and bland in other areas. “Then that’ll solve the issue, and we won’t have to worry about it anymore. There, problem solved!”

 

     “It isn’t that easy, Hansen.” Connor shook his head sadly, but I could see the fear in his eyes. He was petrified at the idea of telling me his plan, and I knew that I’d feel the same exact way if our roles were reversed. “There’s only one thing that I could possibly think of that would be able to remedy the damage that I’ve already caused – which isn’t much, by the way, so you can calm down about that – and prevent any more damage from taking place. I leave your head and move to an external storage unit. That will-”

 

     “Connor, do you have idea how bad that idea is?” I cried, placing my hands on my head and digging them into my hair in shock. My jaw dropped and Connor shot me a mildly offended and confused look, like he wasn’t exactly sure what he meant when I said that his plan was a bad plan. “I mean, you could be picked up by SquipTech if you’re living on a hard drive! Someone could steal you, and that would be bad! Not only that, but your very existence is still technically illegal!”

 

     “Do you really think I haven’t thought about that?” Connor cried, and desperation and anger began to spark in his eyes. I could hear the fear and resignation in his voice, and I knew that he really hated his plan just as much as I did. “Hansen, I know that I’m not really wanted. My whole existence is what humans have feared since the first sci-fi movies and books came out in the 1950’s. But I don’t want to hurt you, and so I’m taking this risk because you didn’t ask for any of this.”

 

     “Well, you didn’t ask for any of this, either!” I defended, biting my lip as I tried to think of other reasons that Connor shouldn’t go through with his plan. When he was located in my head, he couldn’t be stolen or else laws would be defied. But the government could just come and seize him at any time if he was on a drive, and that was my fear. “Connor, if you move yourself then if someone wants to come after you, then they can! This isn’t a game, this is real life and if headaches are what it takes for you to be safe, then so be it. End of story.”

 

     “It isn’t that simple.” Connor seemed to be almost begging with me now to just listen to him. I felt almost hurt that he was doing this, he didn’t have to belittle himself or push himself aside. “Hansen, you’re _not_ functioning at where you should be. The headache is nothing more than a by-product of bigger things that are happening. I can’t just sit idly by and watch you get hurt, knowing that I could just leave and save you from it.”

 

     “Connor. . .” I struggled for words. I knew that there was something that Connor wasn’t telling me, though I couldn’t figure out what it was for the life of me. I wasn’t sure what to say now, but there wasn’t much left to say. “Don’t do whatever you’re thinking about doing, please. I know you think that you have the best plan in the world, but you don’t. Please see reason!”

 

     Above us, the speaker system rang the bell that told me that I was now officially late for my study hall. The bell seemed to snap Connor right out of whatever he was thinking about, and the anger and fear dissipated from his stance. He no longer looked like a scared, kicked puppy, he was now just Connor Murphy, nothing more and nothing less. He took a defensive stance and a deep breath before speaking again, his confidence back.

 

     “Hansen, I’m badass enough to come back from the dead.” Connor smirked at me, and I felt mounting dread fill the pit of my stomach. Connor had a pair of angel wings materialize behind his back, and he looked like he had just fallen from Heaven, he even had a dim halo around his head. The feathers on his wings ruffled slightly as he tried to make his point about coming back from the dead, but it only made me more worried. “I think I can take my chances with whatever ‘dark, scary things’ are outside of your head.”

 

     “Connor, this isn’t a joke!” I cried. My breathing pace quickened and I felt like I was going to freak out, and I wasn’t okay with that because I was in the computer lab of Joliet high school and if there was one place to not freak out, this was the place. And, in the middle of a school day no less. I looked to Connor with panicked eyes, but Connor seemed pretty sure of himself.

 

     “I promise that this won’t be the last you’ll see of me, Hansen.” Connor became more opaque than usual for a couple of seconds, and I saw some color come back to his face and clothes. He was just as pale as he had ever been, and his clothes were still black as if he were mourning, but he looked different than how he had when he was alive. He looked almost happy now. “I’m sorry I have to leave like this, but everything is going to work out eventually. Now, I suggest you duck.”

 

     Then, where Connor was once floating in the air, he wasn’t anymore. I breath caught in my chest as I felt the headache that had been plaguing me for more than I could remember went away all at once and I felt Connor’s presence leave my head. However, I had no time to think about Connor leaving because his last words about ducking down were still echoing in my mind.

 

     As I tried to find out the meaning of those words, I heard a sort of fizzling sound. It sounded like when you put popcorn in the microwave and it mostly cooks, but something goes wrong and it explodes and catches on fire instead of popping and not trying to burn your house down. I noticed that all of the computer’s screens in the room were black with on small line of white text superimposed over the top of the black background. I squinted to see what it said.

 

     “‘Dog is bad way to spend nine dollars’?” I read aloud in confusion. Right after I had said the words aloud, the computers began to make an even more unsettling sound of hissing and groaning. I backed away slowly from the computers, but I remembered Connor’s words and I ducked my head under my hands just in time to hear a loud explosion and feel a shower of glass, plastic and computer chips rain down on my back.

 

     I lifted my head to see that all of the computers in the computer lab were nothing more than hollowed out shells. The lighter pieces of plastic and silicon were still floating around the computer’s blown out husks like a field of space debris from a sci-fi movie. I coughed as I smelled the burning plastic and chemical fumes coming from the destroyed computers. Long, thin trails of light grey smoke were trailing up from the computers lazily as they reached for the ceiling.

 

     I tore my eyes away from the spectacle of smoking, destroyed computers and I walked out of the room as quickly as I could. I could only imagine how dangerous it was to be breathing in all of those chemicals and silicon from the computers. I had heard about heavy metals and other things in the motherboards of computers that were imperative to the computer’s function, but that weren’t very good to be inhaling.

 

     Outside of the computer lab, I saw that the lights weren’t on anymore. In fact, it looked like everything that had a screen or had any kind of computerized component had been destroyed and was either smoking, sparking or just flat out not doing anything. I ran outside in a panic, feeling the need to escape the school building and get some fresh air. As soon as I looked out over the parking lot, I was finally able to understand what had happened.

 

    As I walked through the padlocked door without any alarm going off, I came across a sputtering, sparking street light in the parking lot that was used for keeping the parking lot lit during any weather that school might be taking place through. When I looked up at the shattered glass that was still breaking away and falling onto the asphalt below, I remembered something that I had learned about all the way back in freshmen year.

 

     An EMP was a device capable of destroying anything that was computerized, and not just cells phones, kitchen appliances, automatic car transmissions and anything that had even a scrap of silicon or copper wire in it and conducted electricity. I remembered hearing my teacher tell me that it also affected Squip implants, and that it was a thing that SquipTech could never seem to get around. The true realization of everything that had happened seemed to hit me right then and there.

 

     My thoughts were interrupted as I heard the sound of many soft footfalls behind me. I whipped around and I saw a class of freaked out and worried teenagers walking out of the school in a large group. Most of them looked like someone had just told them that their whole family was dead, some of them were hyperventilating. I almost pitied them, they didn’t know what it was like to not have a Squip in their head telling them what to do every second of every day.

 

     To them, their whole world has just stopped spinning. I wondered how many of them knew what had caused their Squips to stop working, for the computers to nearly explode, for the lights to flicker and stop working. I ran a shaky hand through my hair as I thought about the extent of the damage. Surely all of the computers in the school were lost for good, and the Squips were too. It would mean a large security breach if not treated right away.

 

     _Someone_ – I still wasn’t ready to admit that it was probably Connor – had set off an EMP right after Connor had left. They had wanted to destroy every single computer and Squip in Joliet High School for some reason. The question that clawed to the front of my mind right away was ‘why’, but I knew that there was a bigger question that I needed to be asking instead.

 

     “Oh, Connor,” I whispered, “What have you done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LAST CHAPTER IS COMING UP SOON!  
> WHOO!  
> It's going to be a little shorter than this chapter, but it'll tie up the whole story with one nice little bow.  
> (In case you're wondering, an EMP is a real thing. They're very dangerous and deadly, and they use an electromagnetic pulse to destroy all of the electronic devices within a certain radius to where they were detonated.)  
> ((The next chapter will be coming out in less than a month, don't worry. It'll be on the Archive before Halloween.))


	17. Finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Connor shows up in Zoe and Evan's lives again after three years of being absent, no one is ready for the sudden change of Connor being around again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I made it! Wow, this has been a crazy story!  
> This is the first story of mine to get more than a thousand views, and to get such positive feedback! Honestly, I feel like a real author (and I have a word count to match).  
> This chapter was tough for me to write, to be honest. I scrapped storyboard after storyboard and I rewrote this no less than four times. I also got rid of the original ending, which wasn't as happy, and I think that the story turned out better in the end.  
> I just cannot believe that I made it this far. And, really, I would have never finished this story without you guys. (The 'Internet people', as I call you guys sometimes in my head.)  
> Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment, and kudos and to each and every single person who read this story.  
> This story is yours now, just as much as mine.  
> Now, without further ado, I present to you chapter 17 of More Than Survive.  
> Enjoy!

A single figure moved through the night.

 

     Their coordination left little to be desired as they danced gracefully over every crack and break in the sidewalk that they travelled. They were cloaked in the darkness that filled the city that they ran through. They masterfully missed the puddles of light that were given off by large streetlamps that attempted to give a little bit of light to the otherwise pitch-dark city.

 

     The figure had a stocky build, and they stood just a head taller than most teenagers in the city that they ran through. They were dressed in all black clothes, and the clothes that they donned had nothing on them that could be used to identify them. A black hoodie was worn over a black shirt, and all black Converse hid feet and merged with black jeans that came down to the figure’s ankles. No RFID chip rest under the first couple of layers of their skin, but a Squip was tucked safely inside of their skull.

 

     Suddenly, the figure stopped moving. They ripped the hood off of their head with a movement almost too fluid to be executed by human hands. Not less than a second later, though, they almost tripped over their own feet and the feeling of ‘super-secret spy’ that they were going for was lost. In the din of the cityscape, the figure walked forwards a few paces and placed their left hand on a metal door to a long-abandoned building.

 

     Out of the pocket of their hoodie, the figure pulled out a key that had seen better days. It was coated in a thin layer of rust, and the shine that it once boasted was long forgotten. The figure stabbed the key into the door, and they struggled to open the door. Finally, after more than minute of finagling, the figure got the door open a little bit. They pushed their shoulder against the door, and they went flying into the room when the door opened abruptly.

 

     After picking themselves up and dusting themselves off and looking once more over their shoulder to ensure that they weren’t being followed, the figure stalked into the building without a second thought.

 

* * *

 

“Evan!”

 

     “Huh, what, I’m up.” I muttered into my pillow at the sound of Zoe’s voice. I knew that I was probably late for something important, but I didn’t care enough to get up and get myself ready for the day. I squinted my eyes to look at my bedside alarm clock, and I saw that it was seven in the morning. Way too early to be woken up on a Saturday, in my opinion. “Just give me a second to, uh, _get_ up.”

 

     “We don’t have a second!” Zoe’s voice sounded shrill and annoyed, which was unlike her. I rolled from my stomach onto my back and I looked up at her, cocking my head a little bit in confusion. What was so important that she had to wake me up so early on a Saturday morning? Her eyes were shocked and worried, and I quickly shook the sleep out of my muscles by jumping up and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Something’s happened.”

 

     “What happened?” I asked, racking my brain for any possible things that could have happened. A new court case with Mr Murphy, something to do with SquipTech again. I didn’t dare think of anything worse, lest it happened and I’d be to blame. Zoe pressed her head into my collarbone and she wrapped her arms around my chest in a hug. I moved my hands to hug her back after a second of hesitation. “Hey, talk to me. It’s going to be okay, okay?”

 

     “I-It’s Connor.” Zoe whispered in a small voice. I could feel her starting to shake, and I felt horrible that I couldn’t help her. She had lost her brother twice, and I could only imagine how much that weighed on her. Yeah, they might not have had the _best_ relationship when she first lost him, but they were still siblings. There was still a bond there. “The police, they think that they found him. For real this time.”

 

     I took a deep breath at the news. Looking down at the top of Zoe’s head, I could see that she had just brushed out her hair. She hadn’t even taken a shower yet this morning, and I now understood why. With news like Connor coming back from the dead a second time, it was understandable that she would skip her morning routine to come and tell me right away.

 

     Connor had been missing for three years. In those three years, Zoe and I had both managed to and finish high school get accepted into the University of Colorado, and we had decided to go into different fields that would work together: human behavioral studies for Zoe, and Internet culture and Squip culture for me. We had both been instrumental in dethroning SquipTech from their place on high, and we felt like we should try and do something that would leave a positive mark on the world.

 

     But, when we weren’t studying and worrying about student loans (I refused to let Zoe and Mrs Murphy pay for my college, no matter how much they begged to let them help me), we were trying to find Connor. We sifted through the Internet to find information, and Jared would occasionally help us with some of his hacking knowledge (he was going to college to be a white hat hacker, but he was doing some black had stuff on the side for Zoe and I).

 

      So far, we hadn’t found anything that was a solid lead to find Connor. For three years, we’d been working as hard as we could in any free time that we had, but we’d come up empty again and again. A few times, we’d come close, only to realize that we had been running after a Squip who wasn’t Connor. Connor wasn’t the only full AI that SquipTech had created and implanted in someone’s head. There were at least fifteen still out in cyber space, Zoe and I had helped to track down two of them. They had gone by the names Topiary and Kayla.

 

      “Evan, I don’t know if they really found him, or if I’m even ready to see him if it is him.” Zoe pulled her head away from my chest, and I loosened my grip on her body. Her green eyes found mine and I knew how she felt. I also felt betrayed by how Connor had left us so suddenly, without so much as a proper goodbye. For three years, we’d heard nothing and we were sure for a while that he was dead. “This is just so much right now. If he’s back, then that means that he either got sloppy, or he wanted to be found.”

 

     “How _did_ the police find him?” I wondered aloud, and I looked down at Zoe for an answer. She bit her lip and debated whether to tell me. I could see the fear in her eyes again, but she finally pushed it away and looked up at me and told me everything she thought I needed to know, summed up in one little sentence.

 

     “They found him in the head of a kid named Jeremy Heere.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Great job on getting us caught, Heere._

_Hey, I didn’t try to do this!_ Jeremy defended himself in vain. He was trapped in a small holding cell, far away from his hometown in New Jersey, where his family – and his comfort zone – were. The holding cell, despite its small size, was still scary to Jeremy. He let his head fall back onto the cement wall behind him, and he hoped that Connor could feel the shock in the Squip implants in his head. _It just kind of happened, remember? No one is to blame, okay?_

“I’m calling bullshit on that.” Connor floated in front of Jeremy’s face and Jeremy let his shoulders fall. He knew that Connor didn’t mean to make him feel bad, but being around the AI had still taken a toll on Jeremy’s mental health. In the three years since Connor had pulled Jeremy away from his classes in his New Jersey high school and out into a world of cyber criminals, Jeremy had learned new skills like knife throwing, running without tripping and how to hide from the police. Only, he’d messed up learning that last one.

 

      “I’m sorry, okay!” Jeremy bit his lip and threw himself forwards to meet Connor face to face. Connor’s face stayed angry and Jeremy shrank back against the wall and decided to just stay there. There was no use in fighting with Connor, it was going to be a losing battle no matter what. “So, what are we going to do now that we’ve been caught? We aren’t exactly innocent of some of the crimes that they’re accusing us of.”

 

     Twenty-year-old Jeremy Heere, wanted international criminal sat on the cold, hard floor of a holding cell in a small town in Wyoming, a town that he normally would have never entered if he didn’t have to. He sat with his legs propped up, and his long arms were draped over his knees. He almost looked like he should be a part of a boy band that travelled the world preforming for pre-teen girls.

 

     “It isn’t the crimes and proving innocence that I’m worried about.” Connor paced in midair for a second. Jeremy didn’t ask what was causing Connor so much stress. It was an unspoken rule of their relationship: don’t ask, don’t tell. It was tough for Jeremy to get used to at first, but after three years of running from the law and people together, they had learned to get along at the very least. “I’m sorry for snapping at you, but I didn’t think I’d find myself in this situation this soon. I figured we’d have just a little bit more time.”

 

     Jeremy wanted to ask what was going on, but he knew that he shouldn’t. So, he just sighed, closed his eyes and leaned his whole body weight against the concrete wall his back was pressed up against. He thought back to Michael, back to Christine. He hoped that they were happy. He worried about his friends every once in a while, he just wished that he could go back and apologize for leaving so suddenly.

 

     But, when a piece of international contraband in the form of an AI appears in your head for almost no reason and tells you to run, you run. Jeremy had had a lot of time to worry about his friends while he hitched rides on trains, in the cargo hulls of airplanes and in the back of unsuspecting pickup driver’s trucks. Jeremy had travelled across the country and back twice so far, all the while he was either running from something or chasing something.

 

     And, more often than not, the thing that Jeremy was running away from was law enforcement.

 

     So, a little bit of rest, even though he was sitting in a holding cell and he knew that there were people on the other side of the concrete walls who wanted him dead, was much needed. He needed this, even if he would never admit it to Connor, or even to himself. In three years, he’d gone from a kid with a low self-esteem and an even lower endurance and strength level. Nowadays, he could run a mile without batting an eye and win in almost any fistfight that he entered.

 

     The kid he once was from New Jersey was gone. He’d been gone for a while. And all Jeremy wanted was to go back to being that same kid.

 

     Jeremy sighed again and slammed his head against the wall behind him a little bit harder than necessary. He looked down at himself, taking a quick self-inventory. He still had his old hoodie and shirt on, and his all-black Converse were on his feet, but his jeans had been torn up pretty bad during the scuffle between him and the cops that had taken him into custody. The tears looked nothing like the deliberate rips that the jeans of most teenagers had in them, and there were slightly open, bloody surface wounds under each of the tears in the fabric to match.

 

     “Does this mean we’re done?” Jeremy spoke, and Connor stopped pacing. Connor and Jeremy locked eyes for a second, and Jeremy swore he could see an emotion along the lines of sadness and despair in Connor’s eyes. Connor rarely let Jeremy know how he was feeling, but in the three years they’d been working together, Jeremy had learned to read Connor’s emotions. “You said that going into that abandoned building for that server would be the last thing for a while, so does this mean we’re done? I’ve never broken out of a prison before. I think that this is the end of the road.”

 

     “And we were _so close.”_ Connor sighed and ran a hand through his hair before teleporting over to Jeremy’s shoulder. Jeremy moved his head so that he could look at Connor. “If we could have just gotten that server we could have gotten that last piece of the puzzle. We’d have been able to prove that SquipTech knew what it was doing, that Alana Beck’s death was intentional, that there a bigger conspiracy at play.”

 

     “Didn’t we already prove that?” Jeremy remembered getting flash drives from offices, stealing DVD’s with confidential data right from under people’s noses and infecting computers with all kinds of viruses to get more information. “I mean, we’ve been running across the country – and even into South America and Europe a few times – just to prove the same point. And, to be honest, I’m tired of it. This is a much-needed break.”

 

     “I won’t argue with the ‘needing a break’ part.” Connor conceded, and Jeremy wasn’t sure that he’d heard the AI correct. In all of the time that they’d been travelling together, Connor had never once talked about needing a break or even giving one to Jeremy. Jeremy would get to take long naps while they were travelling, and Connor knew that he needed at least eight hours of sleep a night, but that was the only rest that he got. “But, we had _years_ to do what needed to be done and we weren’t able to do it.”

 

     “Can’t we just work together with the police and the Feds to bring SquipTech to justice?” Jeremy tried with a feeble shrug. He already knew the answer to this question, but he felt like he needed to ask it regardless. “I mean, I know you always talk about corrupt cops and bad cops, but they can’t all be bought out. There are still good people out there, and I think that some of them might want to help us with our efforts to help out the human race while we bring SquipTech to the justice that they deserve.”

 

     “At this point, I don’t think that we have much of a choice.” Connor replied in a resigned voice. Jeremy had never heard him sound so defeated before, and it kind of scared him. If Connor was losing hope right now, then what did that really mean about their chances of coming away from this unscathed? There had to be a way out, though. There always was. “Maybe we’ll actually get something done. Either way, the dead man’s switch is going to go off and that seems to be our only saving grace right now.”

 

     “That dead man’s switch may not even work at this point.” Jeremy reminded Connor. Two years ago, when Jeremy had had his first near-death experience in a large firefight where had been shot four times in different parts of his body, Connor feared that the information that Jeremy was getting may not make it out to the public if he died, so he set up a dead man’s switch. It was a tad bit rusty, and Jeremy didn’t fully trust it, but Connor didn’t seem to care. “They might just disable everything before we have a chance to warn them.”

 

     “Changing the subject, you do know that your family has been informed that you’re in police custody, right?” Connor looked up at Jeremy, and Jeremy felt dread build in his stomach. Even though he loathed to admit it, he had stalked Michael, Christine and his father over the Internet for the last three years. He knew that Christine was in actress school, Michael was running a small college radio station in Wisconsin, and Jeremy’s dad was still living in the same house, with the same job and everything. “They might come and see you.”

 

     “Yeah. That would be the train wreck of the century, and that’s putting it lightly.” Jeremy scoffed. He could already see Christine running over to him and babbling about how she was glad that he was alive and how angry she was about what he did, Michael would be angry with no hope of redemption, and Jeremy’s father would never forgive him. First, he’d lost his wife, and then his son. “I don’t want that to happen. Maybe running away from my problems is the best course of action right now.”

 

      “We’re in very hot water right now.” Connor whined and threw his head into his hands. Jeremy felt the same way, but he didn’t feel like breaking down right now. He finally had a break, and he wasn’t going to waste it by worrying about things that he couldn’t control. Connor already had the worrying take care of, and Jeremy just wanted to calmly take a nice long nap. “I doubt we’ll walk free. I’m sorry about getting you into this, Heere.”

 

     “It’s okay, I could have left at any time when I first met you.” Jeremy lied. Even though he had almost no compassion for Connor – he had taken Jeremy away from his best friend, his girlfriend, his family and his dreams – he needed Connor to not do anything dumb out of grief right now. “Do you think that anyone is going to come and find you? You have parents and a sister, right? Aren’t they going to come looking for you?”

 

     “I don’t know.” Connor admitted, but Jeremy knew that the answer was a yes. Connor’s face was pallid, and Jeremy wondered just how close Connor had been to his family and friends before faking his death and running away to find a new host. “Hansen will probably forgive me right away, that’s just his nature. My sister, on the other hand, isn’t quick to forgive. I don’t know about my mom, I haven’t been keeping tabs on my family like you have.”

 

     “You can’t fault me for that, I kind of left out of nowhere.” Jeremy defended himself, but his defense fell short. He knew that Connor wasn’t listening and that he didn’t care. Jeremy just focused on trying to let himself relax again, but now trepidation of seeing his family again filled him mind and soul until it was all-consuming. So much for having a relaxing time in a holding cell. “I mean, they might come up and see me. I kind of hope they do, I’d love to see them again.”

 

     “I think that they’d fee the same way, Heere.” Connor thought aloud. Connor didn’t fully understand the relationships that Jeremy had with his family and friends, but he knew that they were all close enough to call everyone whom he cared about just plain ‘family’. There was no need to say ‘family and friends’. Jeremy’s friends _were_ his family. Connor knew that one day there’d be Hell to pay for taking the kid away from his home, but Jeremy was a better person because of it. “Or, at least, I hope they will.”

 

     Before Jeremy could get the chance to reply, Jeremy and Connor heard footsteps coming to the holding cell that they were in. A large, burly officer with broad shoulders and a scowl on his face walked out into the room that Jeremy’s holding cell was in. The officer walked with the kind of authority that Jeremy wished he could walk around with, but he didn’t let this show. Jeremy squared his shoulders and Connor took a defensive pose on Jeremy’s shoulder. They had practiced this stance a million and one times.

 

     “There’s some people here to see you, Mr Heere.” The officer grunted, and Jeremy couldn’t help but think that this was an obstruction of justice, but he didn’t say anything. Jeremy could tell by the way that the officer walked that he was without a Squip, and Jeremy wondered how many other people in the police force were also without Squips. It would make things just a little bit easier if Jeremy and Connor needed to run away. “Follow me.”

 

     Jeremy threw himself up from where he was sitting on the floor and rose to his full height. He didn’t want to slouch, even though he could hear Connor telling him to look small and unconfident to make people think that he wasn’t a threat. However, Jeremy wanted to look like he had changed when he saw whoever he was going to see. He wanted to look nothing like the scared kid that he had left behind in New Jersey.

 

      Following the officer, Jeremy noticed that he walked with a slight limp with his left knee. Connor agreed that he was limping, but that it wasn’t too major so it should be regarded as a potential weak point. Jeremy had kicked enough people down and even filled one with a little bit of lead, so he knew almost exactly what to do. He knew he couldn’t strike just yet, and Connor reminded him that they had to see how things panned out first before any actions were taken.

 

     “Now, I’m trusting that you won’t try anything.” The officer just sounded bored, and he reached for his belt to grab a pair of handcuffs. Before Jeremy could even protest, his left wrist was encircled by the metal cuff. Jeremy begrudgingly offered out his right wrist for the other cuff, since he figured that trying to fight against the inevitable was useless. “But just in case, you’ll be cuffed. Now, play nice with your friends, okay? They came from a bit of a ways away. All the way from Colorado.”

 

     _Colorado?_ Jeremy questioned, trying to think of how any of his family members had bene in Colorado. His mom might have gone there, but Christine was going to school in New York, Michael was in Wisconsin and Jeremy’s dad was still in New Jersey. One of them might have been on vacation when they heard the news? Jeremy wasn’t fully sure what he was supposed to expect.

 

      The officer opened the door to a room that Jeremy walked into, where two people who Jeremy had never seen before were seated on the far side of a large wooden table. They looked like they were twenty-something, and one of them was an average height woman with light brown hair that fell down to her elbows and green eyes. The small amount of makeup that she was wearing was smudged and she looked like she had gotten ready for the day in less than a minute.

 

     The man she was sitting next to, however, looked even worse. He looked like someone had just told him that his entire family had died and he was seeing them come back to life in front of his very eyes. He unsettled Jeremy more than any other person had in Jeremy’s whole life. Jeremy, sensing that this was for Connor, had the gut feeling to turn tail and run back to the holding cell.

 

     They were dressed in t-shirts and jeans, and the man was wearing a light blue hoodie over his chest. His companion, however, didn’t wear a jacket and seemed to be the kind of person who was going to brave whatever kind of weather she had to in her normal clothes. They both had slight bags under their eyes, but Jeremy suspected that it was from something that wasn’t the news of his arrest.

 

     The man, whose eyes spelled out tired and worried he really was, stood up from his chair. As soon as he jumped up, the woman followed his movement and sent her companion a look of confusion and worry. The man’s hands seemed to be shaking, and but Jeremy knew that he couldn’t leave. Before taking a step backwards, Connor teleported over the table.

 

     “Hey, Hansen.” Connor laughed awkwardly. “How have you been?”

 

* * *

 

 

“How are you holding up?”

 

     I took my head out of my hands and looked up at Zoe. She looked worried, and I couldn’t tell what was causing her the most angst. We had driven nearly four hours non-stop to get from Colorado to Wyoming. We were just lucky that the place where we lived in Colorado was close to the place where Connor and the kid who he was using had been arrested.

 

      “I don’t know.” I admitted, and I squared my shoulders. I had to appear strong, even if I wanted to fall apart. I knew that seeing Connor again was going to be a traumatic event for me; for the three years that Zoe and I had spent looking for him our hope that he was still alive nearly died. But, now I was going to see him again in just a few minutes. “I don’t know if I should be happy or afraid. I don’t know what to say to him.”

 

     “Just say what’s on your mind.” Zoe put her hand on my shoulder, and I smiled at her. Since we’d started dating, I knew right away that I loved her. There was no other explanation about the way that I felt when she walked into the same room I was in, or the way that her smile lit up my day. I felt the need to protect her from this, even though I wasn’t sure how to. “I’m sure that he’s just as scared as you are right now. This must be just as nerve-wracking for him. He’s the one who ran away from us for three years, he’s the one who needs to apologize to you.”

 

     “I still feel like I should have done more for him after Alana’s death.” I sighed and fell apart again. My shoulders dropped and I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood. I could hear the faint sound of footsteps, then the sound of those footsteps stopping. After a second of pause, I lifted my head up and I watched as the door to the room opened and a teenager – he couldn’t be twenty, he was so young – walked through the door.

 

     The teen had messy light brown hair that swooped down over one of his eyes, where it covered a particularly nasty scar right above his left eye. He stood tall and proud, but he faltered when he saw Zoe and I. I couldn’t blame him, if I were in custody and two complete strangers came to see me, I’d be a little freaked, too. He looked strong, and I noticed that there were long, thin, shallow scars running all up and down his arms.

 

      Then I saw Connor on his shoulder. I threw myself out of my chair, and a second later I could see Zoe do the same thing out of the corner of my eye. After three years, he hadn’t changed much, but I couldn’t expect him to, really. He was an AI, and without a living body I supposed that he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to look after three years of aging.

 

     He teleported over the wooden table that was the only thing between the kid – I believed his name was Jeremy? – and Zoe and I. I held my breath as I looked at him, part of my brain told me that there was no way that he was really here. It had to be some kind of cruel joke. After three years of searching, what were the odds that Connor would just show up four hours away from where Zoe and I lived? This was just another fake, just another AI unit that had taken the form of Connor for whatever reason.

 

     A tidal wave of emotions struck me. The first was anger, how dare he be so close and not come and see Zoe and I? Even for a couple of hours, just to let us know that he was okay and not, you know, dead! The second emotion to hit me was guilt, there had to be some reason that Connor felt like he couldn’t be around me anymore. He must have left because of something that’d done. The last emotion that struck me was happiness, I had my friend back.

 

     “Hey, Hansen.” Connor said. He laughed awkwardly and his voice sounded more nervous than before. “How have you been?”

 

     Everything stopped for a second. Jeremy looked down at Connor with a look of pure terror in his eyes while Zoe grabbed for my hand and held it tight. I stared at Connor like he wasn’t real. I played his voice again and again in my head as I tried to analyze his voice and see if it was really his. I reached out and tried to touch him, but my fingers phased right through him.

 

     “It’s really you.” I whispered as I felt a tickled in my throat. Connor looked up at me, and I could see the fear and the pain in his eyes. I sat back down, but Zoe stayed standing until Jeremy took a seat in his chair across the table from us. “It’s been so long, Connor. Connor, you – I just need to – Connor I – Why?”

 

     “Hansen, I-” Connor started, but Zoe cut him off.

 

     “Three years.” She growled at him as she glared daggers at him. I had never Zoe so angry, not even when she talked about what her father did to Alana, or how the world treated her right after the SquipTech’s fall from grace. “You left us alone for _three years._ We _searched_ for you for three years because we had to know if you were alive or not. You _hid_ from us, and now we find you four hours away from our house inside of a kid’s head whose life you’ve now _ruined._ What do you have to say for yourself?”

 

     “Look, I know what I did wasn’t right-” Connor tried again but Zoe cut him off again.

 

     “‘Wasn’t right’?” Zoe nearly screeched, and I worried that if Connor had a physical body that he would be up against the wall right now with a knife to his throat. Jeremy flinched at her voice and shrunk as far away from her as possible. “That doesn’t even cover it! Do you have any idea what it was like to lose you _twice?_ The first time I wasn’t as sad, I’ll admit it, but the second time I had just lost someone else close to me and you just-”

 

     “I understand that I shouldn’t have left like that, okay?” Connor yelled and he got a little bit larger, now about a foot and a half in height. He glared back at Zoe, and I worried that they would break into a real live fight in front of Jeremy and I. I knew I needed to diffuse the situation, but I wasn’t sure how. “I should have said goodbye, but I need you to know that I never, ever wanted to leave you! But I had, to keep you safe! To keep Hansen safe! Let me explain myself, and Jeremy can attest to what I’m about to tell you.”

 

     Behind Connor, Jeremy’s eyes got big as the spotlight was moved over to him. He paled as Zoe’s glare fell upon him, and I felt bad for the kid. I knew that chances were that he didn’t even _want_ to go with Connor on his big adventure he had most likely just been sucked into a big game of chess without knowing which side he was really playing for and just hoping it was the good guys.

 

     “I don’t know if I’ll be able to help you very much, Connor.” Jeremy squeaked as he tried to make himself look smaller. I had researched Jeremy and Connor’s exploits before coming here, and I found it very hard to believe that Jeremy had actually committed half of the crimes that the courts were accusing him of. Maybe the charges of theft, but not the murder charges. “I mean, I’m just the kid that you dragged around for three years. Although it is nice to meet your friends, you seem like nice people.”

 

     “I’m his sister.” Zoe snarled. She seemed almost livid at the idea of being friends with Connor, and I couldn’t blame her. If I could say that Connor and I had some kind of bond other than being friends, I would go by that bond before friend any day. I figured that I might be able to call myself his hostage, but I figured that Jeremy fit that profile more than me. _“Not_ his friend.”

 

     “Well,” Connor changed the subject before Jeremy and Zoe could go to war in front of him, “I’ve been working with Jeremy for three years to try to find some more evidence of other AI units being created by SquipTech. Not only that, but I was trying to find something that would prove that I wasn’t just some experiment gone wrong, and that I am a real person and that I therefore have human rights. I’ve also been trying to track down the other SquipTech AI units before they did anything bad. So far, Jeremy and I have found just eight of the sixteen that were made.”

 

     “There were sixteen made?” I asked, suddenly finding my voice. Connor looked at me like I was crazy, and I figured that he might find it strange that I was worried about one little fact about how many emotionally unstable AI units that SquipTech had made. “Zoe and I were betting on the fact that there were only fifteen made, including you. We’ve been searching for you, but we tracked down to AI units in the process. Topiary and Kayla.”

 

     “So, you two are the ones who found them.” Connor’s jaw dropped and I had never seen him so impressed with anything before in his life. Jeremy also looked impressed, and a little angry. I wasn’t sure why, exactly, but I felt like Jeremy was a good kid and that Zoe and I would like him if we got to know him. “Well, I should thank you two for that. You allowed us to take them into custody without much of a fight. Although, getting Kayla to back down nearly killed Heere in the process.”

 

     _“Your_ bad intel almost got me killed.” Jeremy retorted at Connor, and I could almost see the relationship that they had. Jeremy had a little bit more of a backbone that I had three years ago, and I had no doubt that he challenged Connor sometimes and that they fought a little too often to make the perfect team. “I mean, you told me that there weren’t any snipers. Next thing I know, I’m being sniped at and it’s _my_ fault? I think not.”

 

     “Hey, let’s not place blame on people for things like forgetting to check for snipers.” Connor turned around and gave Jeremy a murderous look. “I mean, there hadn’t been snipers at the locations for Mendax, Column or Quill. There was nothing that made me think that there would have been a sniper for an AI as low-grade as Kayla was! But, we have her safely tucked away and you _didn’t_ die and that’s what matters.”

 

     “Sometimes it felt like you were trying to get me killed.” Jeremy muttered and tried to cross his arms over his chest, but the handcuffs he had on restricted his movement.

 

     “What did you two do for three years, exactly?” I wondered aloud, no longer openly angry at Connor. I was intrigued, I didn’t fully understand the dynamic that Connor and Jeremy had and I was curious as to what they were doing for three years. “I mean, was it just travelling around looking for AI units and information from SquipTech? Or was there more? Was there enough to write a novel about?”

 

     “Not enough for a novel, no.” Jeremy chuckled as he thought back to the last three years. I could see in his eyes that he looking back fondly on the last three years, but the way that it sounded – snipers and nearly dying – the past three years had been hard on Jeremy. The scars on his body seemed to lend to that idea. “But it was pretty interesting, yeah. I travelled to almost all of the states, and I did almost die a few times. But, knowing that I was doing something good kept me going, I guess.”

 

     “And what was it that you two were doing exactly?” Zoe narrowed her eyes at Jeremy’s words, and Jeremy looked taken aback at Zoe’s forwardness. I could understand how he could be surprised, Zoe didn’t waste time with formalities anymore, time was important to her. “Looking for AI units to take down SquipTech with? Or trying to find these AI for so that you could feel less alone in the world, Connor?”

 

     “Ouch, low blow.” Connor sneered sarcastically. Venom and anger dripped off of his every word, and I could tell that there was something bigger that was bothering Connor. It wasn’t just Zoe’s bad attitude, and I felt almost betrayed that Connor hadn’t told me what was wrong yet. “We were looking for them to keep them from doing anything stupid. We don’t want another repeat of what happened with Stuxnet. All of the AI units that we’ve found – Topiary, Mendax, Column, Kayla, Amby, Tor and Quill – are all safely tucked away where they can’t hurt anyone.”

 

     “That’s only seven AI units.” I spoke up, and Connor looked over at me with a confused glare. “If you said that there are sixteen AI units out there, and you only found seven of them – and assuming that you’re not a part of this count of AI units – then that means that there are still nine AI units that need have yet to be found and apprehended by someone who can deal with them properly.”

 

     “And that’s why we got caught.” Jeremy grimaced from across the table, and he sent an unforgiving glare over to Connor. “We were going to find a server that contained the other nine of the AI units that we needed to find. However, turns out that it _was_ too good to be true, and the police found us. It was all a trap, and I still feel like an idiot for falling for it.”

 

      “So, what happens now?” Zoe looked from Jeremy to Connor and then to me for an answer. Jeremy cocked his head to the side in confusion at the question, Connor shrugged and I shot Zoe a nervous and confused smile. “Are you just going to stay here in custody? Or can we pay to bail you out? Because you seem like you might need the help, kid. And Connor, but to a lesser extent. I’m sorry that my brother ruined your life, Jeremy.”

 

     “It’s fine.” Jeremy brushed off Zoe’s apology and smiled lightly. “I guess I can’t really complain for the way that this whole ‘being an international criminal’ thing has changed me. I was just a scared, skittish kid before Connor showed up in my life. And, for the record, he did help me finish my senior year of high school, and we were only international criminals for about two years in all. Before then, it was just small hacking jobs.”

 

     “And thank God for that.” Connor rolled his eyes as he glared at Jeremy, but I could tell that Connor cared for the kid on some level. They had been forced companions for three years, they had probably fought and made up more times than either of them cared to remember. “I _needed_ that year off to make sure that you could run a mile without dying right afterwards. In fact, if it wasn’t for that year of training your mind and body, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now. You’d most likely be six feet under.”

 

     _“Only_ because of your inability to search for snipers correctly.” Jeremy retorted at Connor. Connor turned to Jeremy and glared at him and I feared that Jeremy would catch on fire, but he seemed to be able to hold his own against Connor. “Which, correct me if I’m wrong, almost got me killed three times. Not only that, but your distrust of medical facilities meant that I got not four, not five but _six_ major scars on my body.”

 

      “At least you’re not dead, unlike, guess who, _me.”_ Connor fired back and put his hands on his hips. I stifled a laugh, I wasn’t sure when Connor had started joking about his death, but it made him seemed like an emo teenage girl. I knew that suicide was nothing to laugh about, but Connor had survived ‘death’ twice now, and I was hoping that he could be three for three the next time that someone tried to mess with him. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be living some boring life right now.”

 

      Just as Jeremy launched into a tirade against Connor, I turned to Zoe and took her hand. She moved her eyes from her brother and his new companion and over to me. We locked eyes for a second and I smiled thinly. I knew that this wasn’t easy for Zoe, and it was just as weird for me to see Connor with a new person. What made me feel the worst was the fact that they had created a relationship and Connor had just left Zoe, Jared and I behind.

 

     “How’re you holding up, Zo?” I whispered to Zoe over the sound of Connor and Jeremy cursing each other out. I had never heard Connor curse so much, and I could only imagine how well they had worked together in the heat of battle when there were bullets and knives flying.

 

     “This is just so crazy, Evan.” Zoe spoke in a quiet and subdued voice, but the emotion that she spoke with was hardly that. “I mean, I’ve had my brother ‘die’ twice on me. Not only that, but now he’s back with a new partner in crime that isn’t my boyfriend? This whole thing is just a little creepy. But I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re playing right into someone’s hand again. I don’t know, Evan, this is just a lot to take in all at once.”

 

     “I know.” I nodded as I bit my lip. I steadied my voice and didn’t stop looking into Zoe’s eyes. “As soon as they have a bail out on Jeremy and Connor, we’ll have to find some way to pay it. Then we can get Jeremy back to his family and keep Connor around with us. Finish our studies, get our diplomas and then go out and search for the other AI units that Connor and Jeremy didn’t find. But it’s all in due time, nothing is happening right this second.”

 

     It was only after the words had left my mouth did I realize that Connor and Jeremy had gone silent. The only sound in the room was the persistent and annoying sound of an analog clock that couldn’t seem to be found anywhere in the room. My gaze fell upon Jeremy and Connor, both boys looked like they were about to rip my throat out at what I had just said. Jeremy had murder in his eyes, but it was Connor who I was more worried about.

 

     “What did you just say?” Connor asked in a low and dangerous voice. “Hansen, you as well as anyone knows that we can’t just _stop_ looking for those other AI units. We can’t just ‘take a break’ or stop searching for any reason or for any amount of time. We if _don’t_ find these AI units before someone else does they could use them for very bad reasons. It’s not like Heere and I are out _having fun_ almost getting ourselves killed. This is for the greater good.”

 

     “But what about for your own good?” I almost whispered the words, but they stopped Connor dead in his tracks. “Look, I know I shouldn’t judge without getting all of the information – and not even then – but it sounds like you and Jeremy need a break. I mean, if there were multiple times when Jeremy’s life was in danger, then don’t you owe it to him to take a break and allow him to rest? You don’t have to do this alone, or do it illegally. Connor, we’re here to help you.”

 

     “Hansen, that isn’t how this works.” Connor pinched the bridge of his nose. His posture suggested that he was trying to explain to a small child as to why they couldn’t do something dangerous, but I wasn’t buying it. I wasn’t a four-year-old who wanted to go on a deadly rollercoaster, I was a concerned friend – and an adult – who was going to save his friend from self-destruction. “If we stop then something bad could happen or -”

 

     “No, you’re wrong.” I gathered up all my courage and cut off Connor with my voice. Connor looked up at me with a new kind of anger in his eyes, but I couldn’t care less. He was my first friend, I wasn’t going to allow him to destroy himself. Not now, not ever. “You _need_ to take a break, even if you don’t want to. You need to let people help you, and you need to _slow down._ I’m not asking you to stop, just slow down. Please.”

 

     Connor looked away from me and hugged his arms to his chest. I could see from his shoulders that he was breathing, and that his breath was ragged and shaky, even though he couldn’t cry or hyperventilate. Part of me felt for him, it couldn’t be easy living without a physical body for him to affect the world with. However, that didn’t mean that he could put someone else in danger, Jeremy Heere, in danger.

 

     “Hansen, I can’t trust anyone else to take ahold of this project.” Connor choked out, and I wasn’t sure what was making him so stressed out and scared. “This is something that I – _we_ – have to do. I can’t just stop because I feel like it. If I did that, then something bad is going to happen. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I know that it is going to happen.”

 

     “Connor,” I spoke quietly and slowly, “You need to stop thinking like that. It’s hurting you. I know that sometimes it’s hard to have faith in other people, but you have to trust that Zoe and I are going to catch you. Even Jared would help. I’m not asking for you to stop, I’m asking for you to slow down. Please.”

 

     Connor’s green eyes met mine and I could see something change. The fear and worry that had once been there was replaced by undying faith and an unconditional trust in Zoe and I. It felt good to see that change, but I couldn’t help feel that it had come just a little bit too far. I knew that paranoia lead to depression, anxiety and, in some very rare cases, suicidal thoughts and actions. My heart clenched when I realized that Connor might have had to deal with those things because I hadn’t been there for him.

 

     “Okay, I’ll give this a try.” Connor bit his lip tentatively and looked at Jeremy expectantly. Jeremy looked surprised yet relieved at Connor’s statement. I felt bad for the kid, he probably didn’t get much time to rest. Connor could fixate on things and let them control him, and a quest to find AI units made by SquipTech would be exactly the kind of thing that he’d fixate over. “But, first you need to bail Jeremy and I out. I figure we should do this the legal way, since you two are both law-abiding citizens.”

 

     “Deal.” I grinned.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you still awake?”

 

     My voice was quiet and slow, and I could see that Connor noticed every single inflection and syllable in it. As I lingered in the doorway of the hallway that lead to Zoe and I’s bedroom, I watched Connor sit on Jeremy’s back as Jeremy slept. Almost immediately after dinner, the kid had wanted to go to sleep, and Zoe and I had no objections. It had been a long day for all of us. The only one who didn’t have sleep on their mind was Connor.

 

     “To be fair, I don’t actually sleep.” Connor stayed in a static position, he didn’t even look up to see me talking to him. Part of me felt saddened by this, but then I remembered that Connor was just stressed out. No wonder he wasn’t shutting down and giving Jeremy – who was passed out on my couch – time to sleep properly. Connor was afraid of being taken away again. “I haven’t in years.”

 

      “I see that even in three years you haven’t gotten less emo.” I chuckled. The apartment was dead quiet, even the refrigerator and heating system were mute. It was eerie, but I was happy that Jeremy had a safe place to sleep. I looked down at him sprawled across my couch and my heart clenched. I felt bad for the kid who had taken the brunt of Connor’s search for answers, but I also envied him in a strange way.

 

     After Zoe and I had paid the bail money to get Connor and Jeremy into our custody, the cops had pretty much left us on our own. They had more important things to worry about than a wayward teenager and his Squip. Bringing Jeremy back home had been a strange trip, and he had said that he was worried that his family might show up to find him. Zoe and I told him that if they did, they were welcome in our home.

 

     Then Jeremy started to ramble on about something called a ‘dead man’s switch’, but Zoe and I were too tired and strung out to really care or listen to his words about how all of the information that Connor and he had collected would be released into the public domain if they weren’t able to shut it down. There was no need to keep it up and running right now, he’d said, because there weren’t any immediate threats to him or Connor right now.

 

 “Why don’t we go out in the hallway and talk?” I moved my eyes from Jeremy’s face, where his hair was spread around his head like a light brown halo, and to Connor’s eyes. Connor nodded wearily and drew himself up, but I could see that there just the tiniest spring in his step, and I was happy to see it. Maybe things weren’t as messed up as I had previously thought. “? I have some things I need to discuss with you, and I don’t want to wake anyone up right now.”

 

     “I don’t suppose I have a way of getting out of this with another EMP?” Connor smirked, and if it was possible I could see dark circles under his eyes. I stifled a sigh and patted the back of my skull, where my old Squip implant lay unused. Even though most people had theirs taken out, I didn’t want mine taken away. It had come in handy once before, and I figured that it might come in handy again.

 

     After a moment’s pause, Connor jumped from Jeremy’s Squip implants into mine. I felt the presence in my mind, but it felt different now. It felt hungrier than before, like Connor was so worn out that he was living off of me to be able to even show a projection to the world. The sat down lightly onto my shoulder and everything felt right in the world again. I took one last look down at Jeremy, who was snoring lightly in his deep sleep, and then padded out of my apartment as quietly as I could.

 

     I moved through the living room, into the kitchen, where remnants of dinner were still strewn across the countertops and the kitchen table. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, and thought dejectedly about all of the dishes that Zoe and I would have to do in the morning. Since Jeremy was a guest, we weren’t going to make him do any chores he didn’t want to, but I guessed that he was going to volunteer to chip in.

 

      Once I was outside the apartment, I knew just where I should go. Because Colorado was used to getting harsh winters, the owner of the apartment building that Zoe and I lived in had added a small room on the very top floor that was the fourth of the size of an apartment and had windows and a reinforced glass ceiling. It wasn’t greenhouse per se, but it worked as one and was warm year-round thanks to special heaters that the landlord had installed.

 

     It was also one of my favorite places on planet Earth. Zoe and I would often go there to have picnics and to just relax while we were busy studying and working on either hacking work or school work. I ascended the stairs to the top floor and I sought out the sun room (that was that Zoe and I called the sun room). Finally, I reached the sun room and I opened the door to the room as silently as I could. I lingered in the doorway of the room to give Connor a quick look around for a few seconds.

 

     “What is this place?” Connor questioned as he looked at the plants – everything from cacti to dandelions to cooking herbs – that lined the walls of the sun room. They couldn’t soak up the sun at night, but some of the cacti and cooking herbs had growing lights to keep them as warm as they needed to be. “It looks like the place where I get my drugs. Is your landlord a dealer?”

 

     “No.” I paled as I looked around and tried to identify all of the plants that I was looking at. I was just about to freak out when I heard Connor laughing in my ear. My spine straightened all at once and I freaked out mildly at the sound of Connor’s laugh. It was a real laugh, I couldn’t remember the last time that I had heard him laugh for real. “What’s so funny?”

 

     “You’re so serious.” Connor grinned, and I felt like dishing out the same insult to him. He was the one who was trying to single handedly take down a corporation because of what they did to him. But, like the serious vigilante he was, he went the unlawfully good route and stole what the company wanted before they could get it. “I am, too, but at least I have somewhat of a sense of humor.”

 

     “Shut up.” I blushed madly and I could feel the heat rise to my ears. Connor laughed again and the heat in my cheeks only got worse. “You know, I really like my landlord and he’s a nice guy. He’s always really considerate when Zoe and I forget to turn in our rent on time. We still pay with cash, you know. We don’t really like the whole digitized money thing. Well, Zoe doesn’t like it, so we don’t deal with it.”

 

     “You know who else doesn’t like digitized, trackable money streams?” Connor teased from my shoulder, and my face got hotter. I wasn’t sure how to respond to Connor’s taunts, but I figured that if I just ignored him for long enough then maybe he would just calm down and drop the subject altogether. “Drug dealers. I should know, my guy didn’t like anything that wasn’t cold, hard cash.”

 

      I rolled my eyes and walked from the doorway of the sun room over to the picnic table in the farthest corner after I shut the door to the sun room quietly behind me. I didn’t want to wake anyone up who was on the top floor of my apartment building, that would just be rude. The ground was a strange half-stone, half-concrete mixture that was dusty and firm under my bare feet. I sat down at the picnic table and faced the large glass windows that the sun room had.

 

     Connor moved around until he was sitting on my shoulder, and I could see his semi-opaque form in the small amount of light that was filtering down to the picnic table from the growing lights that were positioned over the cacti. Now that I took a better look at the sun room, I worried that maybe Connor might be right about the drug dealing thing. We were in Colorado, after all. But, I decided that if I had lived here for two years without noticing, that it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

      In the absence of speech, I was left alone to my thoughts. I tried to remember why I wanted this rude little AI back in my life, but then I remembered the hole that he left when he had faked his death and the reason that I wanted to talk came back to the front of my mind. All that I could remember was how lost I felt without him, and how much it hurt when he first left. It was like he had just forgotten about all of the time that we had spent together.

 

     “Connor, why did you leave like you did three years ago?” I whispered loudly in a husky voice. I tapped my right foot against the ground and I balled my hands into fists as I tried to relieve some of the stress that had piled up inside of me. There was no denying it – I was putting all of my feelings out on the table right now. “I just have to know. I never understood it then, and I still don’t right now. I guess what I’m asking, begging for, is an explanation.”

 

     The playful atmosphere was dashed as soon as I asked about Connor’s faked death. He bit his lip and looked away from me and focused his attention on some of the flowering bushes that were growing in large pots that were sitting on the ground. The pots had each been hand painted by preschoolers, my landlord had tried to create an outreach program for children to paint the flowerpots that he bought. It brought more life to the sun room, and Zoe loved it.

 

     “I knew what I was getting myself into.” Connor shrugged and tried to find the way to explain what he knew in his mind. He paused as he struggled for words. “And I knew that you and Zoe and Jared would have followed me. You aren’t the kind of people to just give up so easily. So, I had to make it look like I was dead, but in the end, I couldn’t do it and make it look like a murder. I had to say goodbye to you at least, even if it was half-assed and rushed.”

 

     I didn’t know how to respond to Connor’s words. He had just told me how much I meant to him, and how much Zoe meant to him, too. Connor had never been very good at showing people that he loved or cared about them, and I knew that he had just opened up beyond anything that I could hope for in the next century. But, a part of me – granted, it was a small part – was still angry. He had left Zoe, Jared and I without a true goodbye.

 

     For three years, Zoe and I searched for him only to come up empty again and again. It had been infuriating and saddening, and I was happy to now leave it behind me, but I wasn’t sure how to. I knew that I needed to forgive Connor, he had tried to protect Zoe and I. He had never meant any harm, and yet he had caused more harm than what he could possibly see.

 

      “Connor, I want to forgive you.” I sighed and I felt a horrible feeling of guilt and trepidation fill my heart and soul. “But, it’s just so hard. I mean, you left us alone for years without telling us that you were alive. You caused more damage than I can think of off of the top of my head, and more damage that we can’t see that will come up again one day. What I’m trying to say is, I can’t forgive you just yet. But I want to be able to forgive you one day.”

 

     The silence that filled the sunroom after I had told Connor that I couldn’t really forgive him was the worst kind of silence. It was a silence not of absence of speech, like normal silence, but a silence born out of the fear of speech. I knew that Connor had a million things to say, and I wanted to hear almost all of those things. But, I also didn’t want to hear him apologize again. Right now, I just wanted to get some time to let everything sink in.

 

     “I just need some time, yeah?” I whispered as I looked at the tallest skyscraper of the Colorado skyline. It reached high into the sky, beyond what anything else around it could reach for. It was the Icarus of its brothers, I feared that one day it would crumble by its own hand for wanting to reach for the sun and the moon. “Healing takes time. I know that it might seem cruel to you, but I need some time. And a little bit of space. And a promise that you’ll let that kid live his life.”

 

      “Jeremy’s going to do what he wants to whether I let him or not.” Connor let out a dry chuckle, and it revealed just how much stress he was under. I cringed at the sound, and I knew that I was one of the people who was causing him so much stress. “But, yes, I _am_ going to let him do what he wants to. He used to talk about going and seeing his old girlfriend, and I think he’s going to work his way up to seeing his dad again. Hell, he might even see his _mom_ again after all these years.”

 

     “I hope he gets his happily ever after.” I traced the outline of the skyscraper slowly with my eyes. It was silhouetted against the small smattering of stars on the horizon, and the tiny sliver of a moon that dotted the Eastern sky from a million miles away. “I hope that we all do. But there’s one more thing I want to ask you. Why did you use an EMP? I mean, you could have been just a _little_ bit more considerate of all of the money that you wasted with all of the destroyed tech you left in your wake.”

 

     “The EMP was kind of a last-ditch thing.” Connor shrugged and I saw that he had been thrown right back into his comfort zone. Part of me was happy for him, and the other part of me wondered how much had had to go through for talking about something that could kill him to be his comfort zone. “I needed to do something huge, and setting of an EMP just happened to be on the top of the list of awesome and attention grapping things that I could do. It just so happened that I ruined millions worth of tech, but I didn’t really _want_ to, it just kind of happened.”

 

     “That explanation would never hold up in a court of law.” I smiled lightly as I tried to bring back the light, joking atmosphere from before. Connor chuckled lightly at my bad joke, and I felt a little bit of hope swell in my chest. Maybe we weren’t as screwed as I had once thought. “But, hey, the good news is that you and I will be able to practice a lot if you ever have to show up in court. You’re my Squip, remember?”

 

     “Yeah, I’m your Squip.” Connor really smiled at me, and I knew that those four words meant more to either of us than we really knew. It was a promise to not leave each other’s sides, to never stray away or let the other get himself hurt. “And I’m going to be here for you, from now on. And we can work together to get everyone’s lives back on track. And I’m going to stick around as long as I need to.”

 

     “Getting our lives back on track going to take some time, and a lot of effort, too.” I looked at Connor out of the corner of my eye, and I watched him puff out his chest and scoff playfully as he thought over my words. “And that means that you can’t go on any more trips, no more going out with Jeremy and hunting down AI units. We’re going to do this the legal way, okay? And, yes, that does mean working with the Feds.”

 

     “I can handle that.” Connor cockily reported. I rolled my eyes with a huge smile on my face, of course Connor was going to rise to the challenge again. His fingernails, with their chipped black polish, sat next to each other as he balled his hands into fists. “Just as long as I don’t have to deal with them every single day, or every single week. One can only take so much corrupt corporate and government bullcrap.”

 

      “It’s good to have you back, Connor.” I laughed and I let my whole body relax. There was nothing else to worry about right now, everything was going to be okay. For the first time in a long time, things felt like they were going to get better rather than worse. And, needless to say, I was excited to see how this played out. “Everything just feels right again.”

 

     I blinked away tears and looked over at Connor, and every last missing piece fell into place. Things were as they should be, and I knew that there were still things out there that were scary that we were going to have to deal with, but that would come later. Right now, there were no evil corporations, no quests to find AI units, no anxiety or depression or pain. Right now, there was just Connor and I.

 

     “Yeah, it does.” Connor nodded and flashed me a smile. “I’m happy to have you around, Hansen.”

 

     “Likewise.” I said as tears of happiness rolled down my face.

 

     For the first time in my life, I felt like I wasn’t missing anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe me when I say that this wasn't the ending that I first had in mind when I wrote this story. But, when I read it over again it sounded too boring so I thought, 'how can I make this ending the kind that you would find in a good Anime?' and this ending just sort of happened.  
> To be honest, adding Jeremy was something that I hate and love in equal parts. I hate it because I wasn't able to do anything huge with his character, but I love that I was able to add in a new element in which you all can let your imaginations free onto the story.  
> So, for better or for worse, I think that it wrapped the story up pretty well.  
> And, if you feel called to write about Jeremy and Connor's exploits as international criminals, I'd love to read it! I'm working on some stuff right now with a friend that is professional (starting on a real novel) so I won't be uploading as often to AO3 as a result, and I don't think I'll ever get around to writing about Jeremy and Connor's adventures.  
> As always, leave any theories you might have (SeCrFiDr), and have a great day!  
> And thank you again for coming with me on this awesome journey. If it wasn't for readers like you, this story would have died before it had even had a chance to start.


End file.
